A team of scientists leading the ice sheet mass balance inter-comparison exercise (IMBIE) combined satellite observations of the Antarctic ice sheet, its changing volume, flow and gravitational attraction with modelling of its surface mass balance from 1992 to 2017. Their report, recently published in Nature, showed that the Antarctic ice sheet lost 2,720 ± 1,390 billion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2017, which corresponds to an increase in mean sea level of 7.6 ± 3.9 millimetres. Over this period, ocean-driven melting has caused rates of ice loss from West Antarctica to increase from 53 ± 29 billion to 159 ± 26 billion tonnes per year; ice-shelf collapse has increased the rate of ice loss from the Antarctic Peninsula from 7 ± 13 billion to 33 ± 16 billion tonnes per year.
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