Antarctica is crucial because of its profound effect on the Earth’s climate and ocean systems. Its four-kilometre-thick ice sheet holds and shows us what our planet’s climate was over the past one million years.

Earth observation has shown that the Antarctic’s ice is unstable and its sheet is losing mass, contributing significantly to global sea-level rise.

Data from orbiting satellites show that Antarctica has been losing ice at a rate of about 150 billion tons per year since 2002. This contradicts earlier claims that the ice sheet was stable or growing, as the data indicate substantial ice loss, especially in West Antarctica, contributing to global sea-level rise.

Visualisations on climate.nasa.gov of Antarctic ice mass loss show a detailed picture of how much ice Antarctica has shed from 2002 to 2023. This supports the claim that warming oceans around Antarctica play a vital role in the ice mass loss.