Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017  [paywall] – see also Axios – “Why this matters: The safety of coastal populations, including growing megacities worldwide, is intricately tied to the fate of Antarctica’s ice sheet. Until a few years ago, Antarctica was assumed to be far more stable than the Greenland Ice Sheet, but that is no longer the case. The faster and more significantly that Antarctica melts due to global warming, the higher that seas will rise. This means more damaging storm surges and so-called “sunny day” flooding during ordinary high tides. Such flooding is already happening along the U.S. East Coast. If all of Antarctica were to melt, the study says, it would raise global sea levels by a catastrophic 58 meters, or 190 feet. Luckily, no study is projecting this will happen, at least not anytime soon. However, greater than 1 meter, or 3.3 feet, of sea level rise is possible by the end of this century, with more to come thereafter…”

[Via the article in Nature] The Antarctic Ice Sheet is an important indicator of climate change and driver of sea-level rise. Here we combine satellite observations of its changing volume, flow and gravitational attraction with modelling of its surface mass balance to show that it 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 (errors are one standard deviation). 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. We find large variations in and among model estimates of surface mass balance and glacial isostatic adjustment for East Antarctica, with its average rate of mass gain over the period 1992–2017 (5 ± 46 billion tonnes per year) being the least certain.”

See also the Washington Post – Antarctic ice loss has tripled in a decade. If that continues, we are in serious trouble.