NASA Mission Maps 16 Years of Ice Loss

Using the most advanced Earth-observing laser instrument NASA has ever flown in space, scientists have made precise, detailed measurements of how the elevation of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years. The results provide insights into how the polar ice sheets are changing, demonstrating definitively that small gains of ice in East Antarctica are dwarfed by massive losses in West Antarctica. The scientists found the net loss of ice from Antarctica, along with Greenland’s shrinking ice sheet, has been responsible for 0.55 inches (14 millimeters) of sea level rise between 2003 and 2019 – slightly less than a third of the total amount of sea level rise observed in the world’s oceans. Music credit: "Frozen Waves," Universal Production Music Video credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Lead Producer: Ryan Fitzgibbons (USRA) Lead Writer: Kate Ramsayer (Telophase) Scientist: Thomas A. Neumann Ph.D. (NASA/GSFC) Lead Scientists: Benjamin E. Smith (University of Washington Applied Physics Lab Polar Science Center) Helen Amanda Fricker (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego) Alex S. Gardner (NASA/JPL CalTech) Lead Visualizer: Kel Elkins (USRA) Lead Editor: Ryan Fitzgibbons (USRA) Lead Narrator: LK Ward (USRA) Lead Animator: Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (USRA) Videographer: Jefferson Beck (USRA)