The Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) has shown signs of record-breaking growth after decades of contributing to global sea-level rise — as experts reveal their theories why.
A study published in Science China Earth Sciences revealed that between 2021 and 2023, the AIS gained mass at a rate of 108 gigatons per year — a remarkable reversal from the rapid loss seen in previous years.
The researchers analyzed data from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) and GRACE-FO (GRACE Follow-On) missions, which measure changes in Earth’s gravity field to track ice mass fluctuations. They found that the AIS had been losing ice at a rate of 142 gigatons per year from 2011 to 2020.
That accelerated mass loss was mainly driven by the destabilization of glaciers in West Antarctica and the Wilkes Land–Queen Mary Land (WL-QML) region of East Antarctica.
