Satellites show Earth lost more than 12 trillion tons of ice from Greenland, Antarctica in 47 years
Researchers used 27 satellite missions to show that 84% of the loss came from ice flowing into the ocean, not surface melting.
- On Wednesday, September 16, 2026, researchers published a study in Scientific Data revealing that Greenland and Antarctica have lost 11.3 trillion tons of ice since 1979, driving significant global sea level rise.
- Lead study author Ines Otosaka of Northumbria University explained that 84% of ice loss stems from glaciers discharging into the ocean, with only 16% from surface melting driven by atmospheric temperatures.
- The international team utilized data from 27 satellites across 45 independent surveys, finding that Greenland's annual ice loss surged from 60 billion metric tons in the 1980s to 264 billion metric tons in the 2010s.
- This melting raised global average sea levels by 3cm, prompting co-author Professor Andrew Shepherd to warn that the rise puts "another six to nine million people at risk of coastal flooding and erosion."
- Despite a temporary slowdown between 2020 and 2023 caused by weather variations, Otosaka warned of potential "tipping points" as the long-term trend remains driven by warming oceans accelerating ice sheet discharge.
26 Articles
26 Articles
We’ve Lost 11 Trillion Metric Tons of Ice Since the 1980s
Caption/Credit: New research finds that the majority of the ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica since the 1980s has come from glaciers and ice sheets discharging into the ocean, rather than melting at the surface. Here, melt ponds are seen dotting the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet in July 2025. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey
An important scientific report indicates that, since 1979, about 11.3 billion metric tons of glacier ice have melted in Greenland and Antarctica, a sufficient amount of frozen water to stack ice in a thick...
The ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica have lost 11 trillion tons of ice over the past 50 years. This has caused global sea levels to rise by more than 3 centimeters. Moreover, a large-scale international satellite study shows that the main cause is not the melting of ice at the surface, but glaciers flowing into the ocean at an increasingly rapid rate.
Associated Press News
Satellites show Earth lost more than 12 trillion tons of ice from Greenland, Antarctica in 47 years
A major report has found that 12.5 trillion tons of ice from Greenland and Antarctica have melted since 1979.
Svenska Dagbladet
corren.seGreenland and Antarctica have lost 11.3 trillion tons of ice since the 1970s. It has raised global sea levels by more than three centimetres, according to a new study.
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