Antarctica is Actually Gaining Ice

• News & Highlights

A NASA study finds Antarctica is actually gaining ice cover despite global warming. A study released last week used satellite data to determine the continent's ice sheet gained 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001, slowing to 82 billion tons from 2003 to 2008.

“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said. “But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC [ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”