Mass balance of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from 1992 to 2020

In 2023, we published a new assessment of Greenland and Antarctica mass balance in Earth System Science Data, covering the period 1992 to 2020. In this third IMBIE assessment, we combined 50 satellite surveys of Antarctica and Greenland to determine their rate of ice melting. Between 1992 and 2020, Earth’s polar ice sheets lost 7,560 billion tonnes of ice – equivalent to an ice cube that would be 20 kilometres in height. The polar ice sheets have together lost ice in every year of the satellite record, and the seven highest melting years have occurred in the past decade. Importantly, this assessment brings the IMBIE records of ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland in line, using the same methods and covering the same period in time.