Antarctic ice raises sea level when grounded ice—ice resting on bedrock—moves into the ocean and melts or calves away. Floating sea ice and ice shelves have little direct effect on sea level when they melt, but thinning or loss of an ice shelf can reduce its support of grounded glaciers and allow them to flow faster into the sea. From 1979 through 2024, Antarctica lost an estimated 4,876 ± 530 gigatons of ice, equivalent to 13.5 ± 1.5 millimeters of global mean sea-level rise, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service’s preliminary updated record.
How does Antarctic ice loss contribute to sea-level rise?
The key distinction is whether the ice is grounded or already floating. Grounded Antarctic ice sits on bedrock, sometimes below sea level. When that ice is discharged through glaciers and ice streams into the ocean, it transfers water that was previously stored on land into the ocean, raising global mean sea level. Icebergs that break off grounded glaciers are part of that transfer.
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By contrast, sea ice forms from ocean water and floats in the ocean. Ice shelves are also floating: they are thick extensions of land-based glaciers that remain attached to the coast. Their melting does not add an equivalent volume of new water to the ocean because they already displace seawater. The same basic distinction explains why melting a floating ice cube in a glass does not noticeably raise the water level.
Floating ice still matters indirectly. Ice shelves can press against coastlines and seabed features, slowing the glaciers behind them. This restraining effect is called buttressing. If an ice shelf thins or retreats, the grounded ice feeding it can accelerate toward the ocean. The resulting loss of grounded ice, rather than the shelf’s own floating melt, is what contributes directly to sea-level rise. NASA’s Antarctic mass-loss overview describes how outlet glaciers flow toward the coast and identifies warming ocean water as an important influence on contemporary mass loss: NASA’s Antarctic Ice Mass Loss 2002–2023 overview.
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How much ice has Antarctica lost?
There is no single rate that applies to every period or measurement. Cumulative totals cover a stated span; annual rates average change over a different, usually shorter, observation window. Keep the dates attached when comparing them.
| Estimate | Period and measure | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| 4,876 ± 530 Gt lost; 13.5 ± 1.5 mm of global mean sea-level equivalent | 1979–2024; cumulative | Copernicus Climate Change Service’s 2026 ice-sheet indicator. Its updated IMBIE-based values are marked preliminary and may change as the data are consolidated. |
| 135 Gt per year; 0.4 mm per year of sea-level contribution | 2002–2025; annual average | NASA’s current GRACE and GRACE-FO Earth Indicator summary, accessed in 2026. |
| 150 billion metric tons per year | 2002–2023; annual average | NASA’s separate visualization summary, published in 2023 and updated in 2025. |
| 2,670 Gt lost [1,800–3,540]; 7.4 mm [5.0–9.8] of global mean sea-level rise | 1992–2020; cumulative | IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group I (2021). |
Sources and definitions: Copernicus Climate Change Service, NASA’s Ice Sheets Earth Indicator, NASA’s 2002–2023 overview, and the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Chapter 9.
The NASA annual averages are not estimates for identical periods: one covers 2002–2025 and the other 2002–2023. Their different end dates and data summaries mean they should not be averaged together or treated as a direct contradiction. Likewise, the IPCC figure is a cumulative estimate for 1992–2020, not an annual rate or a present-day measurement. The uncertainties shown with the Copernicus and IPCC cumulative totals are part of the estimates, not optional margins to omit.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesCopernicus gives an approximate conversion of 360 Gt of ice to 1 mm of global mean sea-level equivalent. That conversion helps translate a mass loss into a familiar unit, but it does not predict the rise at a particular coast.
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What makes Antarctic ice-sheet mass change?
An ice sheet’s mass balance is the net result of gains and losses over a period. Snowfall adds ice to the sheet. Losses include surface meltwater that runs off, sublimation and evaporation, wind erosion, melting at the base, iceberg calving, and the movement of solid ice through glaciers and ice streams into the ocean.
Not all meltwater immediately leaves the ice sheet. Some refreezes or percolates into snow. Some drains away and contributes to the ocean. The balance depends on both surface processes and ice dynamics: snowfall can replenish mass even while glaciers are losing ice, and a snowfall anomaly can temporarily offset losses without reversing a longer-term trend.
In Copernicus’s description, a negative mass balance means the ice sheet has lost more through surface melting and ice dynamics than it gained from snowfall. Its estimates combine observations of changes in ice volume or gravity with estimates of ice discharge based on ice velocity and thickness at the grounding line, and regional climate-model estimates of surface mass balance. No single observation alone captures all those gains and losses.
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Where is the loss occurring?
A continent-wide total conceals different regional patterns. In its 1979–2024 breakdown, Copernicus attributes 84% of cumulative Antarctic loss to West Antarctica and a further 17% to the Antarctic Peninsula; East Antarctica remained close to balance overall. Those shares are rounded reported figures, so their sum need not equal exactly 100%. The indicator names Thwaites and Pine Island among glaciers with accelerated thinning, flow, and retreat of their grounding lines.
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Annual changes can also differ sharply from the long-term pattern. Copernicus reports that Antarctica had a brief net gain in 2022, associated with anomalous snowfall in East Antarctica, followed by preliminary net losses of 56 Gt in 2023 and 82 Gt in 2024. A single year’s gain does not erase the cumulative loss since 1979; it describes an annual fluctuation within a longer record.
NASA’s 2002–2023 visualization similarly shows modest gains in parts of East Antarctica outweighed by West Antarctic losses. Flow lines lead toward major outlet glaciers, including Pine Island and Thwaites. NASA says this pattern is consistent with other observations that warming ocean water around Antarctica plays a key role in present-day mass loss. Read the map with its date range in mind: it shows a particular observation interval, not a permanent division in which every part of one region always gains or loses ice.
How do scientists estimate the change?
Antarctica is too large and remote to measure by simply weighing its ice. Scientists bring together complementary satellite observations and models. Satellites can detect changes in ice-sheet volume or in Earth’s gravity field, which responds to changes in the distribution of mass. Ice velocity and thickness near the grounding line help estimate how much ice is being discharged. Regional climate models estimate surface mass balance, including snowfall and surface losses.
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These methods measure different parts of the problem and have uncertainties. Combining them provides a more complete mass-balance estimate than relying on one signal alone. The international Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) reconciles satellite-based estimates using a common framework. The National Snow and Ice Data Center describes IMBIE as a collaboration of more than 80 polar scientists funded by NASA and the European Space Agency; its publications page lists its work. The NSIDC also explains the context of these observations in Introducing Ice Sheets Today.
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Mass-balance estimates often arrive with a delay of about a year because the observations and analyses are complex. The Copernicus values through 2024 are explicitly preliminary. That status does not make them unusable; it means later consolidation may revise them. When citing an estimate, include its source, observation period, whether it is a cumulative change or annual average, and any stated uncertainty.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why does sea level differ from place to place?
The millimeter figures above are global mean sea-level equivalents, not predictions for every shoreline. Losing a large mass of ice also changes the ice sheet’s gravitational pull on nearby ocean water. As the ice mass declines, sea level can fall close to the ice sheet relative to the global average, while rising farther away. The National Snow and Ice Data Center explains this pattern in its overview of why ice sheets matter.
Local sea level is also affected by other processes, including changes in ocean circulation and the movement of land. The global mean equivalent is therefore useful for accounting for the ice’s contribution worldwide, but it is not a local forecast. A coastal projection needs location-specific information beyond the Antarctic mass-loss total.
What do projections say about Antarctica’s future contribution?
Historical observations describe what has happened; scenario-based projections estimate possible future change under different emissions pathways and other assumptions. In its 2021 Sixth Assessment Report, the IPCC gives likely ranges for Antarctica’s contribution to sea-level rise by 2100 that vary by scenario:
| IPCC AR6 scenario | Antarctic contribution by 2100 |
|---|---|
| SSP1-2.6 | 0.03–0.27 m (likely range) |
| SSP2-4.5 | 0.03–0.29 m (likely range) |
| SSP5-8.5 | 0.03–0.34 m (likely range) |
These ranges are from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2021), Working Group I, Chapter 9. They are not a promise that one specific value will occur, nor should they be confused with the observed 1992–2020 mass loss or the 1979–2024 Copernicus record. The scenario labels matter: each range is tied to a different emissions pathway, and each is expressed as a likely range.
A separate scale comparison is the estimate that complete melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet would correspond to 57.9 ± 0.9 m of global mean sea-level rise, reported by Copernicus. This describes the sea-level equivalent of the ice stored in the sheet; it is a total-melt thought experiment, not a near-term projection.
Does melting sea ice raise sea level?
Melting floating sea ice has little direct effect on sea level because it is already floating in seawater. Antarctic ice shelves are also floating and likewise do not contribute to sea level in the same direct way as grounded ice. The important indirect effect is that a thinner or smaller shelf may provide less buttressing, allowing grounded glaciers to discharge ice into the ocean more quickly. That grounded-ice transfer is the central Antarctic contribution discussed in sea-level accounting.
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