A large fraction of the Earth’s fresh water is frozen: It’s stored in glaciers all around the world, and in both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. When this ice melts or calves off, the water flows into the oceans and sea levels rise. If all glaciers and ice sheets melted, global sea level would rise by more than 195 feet (60 meters). NASA continuously measures the weight of glaciers and ice sheets – with the twin GRACE satellites from 2002 to 2017, and with the GRACE-Follow On satellites since 2018. These satellites unambiguously show that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, as well as the glaciers, are shrinking.
Both the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the US National Climate Assessment conclude that ice loss was the largest contributor to sea-level rise during the past few decades, and will contribute to rising sea levels for the century to come.
