What 30 years of satellite data say about Antarctica's icy coastline

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-03-03 10:30

International

Photo by Una Miller on Unsplash

77% of ice over the ground along Antarctica's coastline has remained stable over the past thirty years, according to international researchers, who used satellite data to track Antarctica's grounding line - the boundary between where ice rests on bedrock and where it floats on the ocean. The grounding line is a sensitive indicator of glacier stability, and the team found that the retreat is concentrated in the northeast and southwest Antarctic peninsulas. Between 1996 and 2025, the researchers say, the ice sheet lost about 12,820 km2 of grounded ice, with 62% from West Antarctica and 28% from East Antarctica. According to the team, parts of West Antarctica saw notable retreats of between 10 to 40+ kilometers.

News release

From: PNAS

Glacier grounding line retreat in Antarctica
Researchers charted 30 years of grounded ice loss along the coast of Antarctica. A glacier’s grounding line is the boundary between the place where ice rests on bedrock and the place where ice floats on the ocean. Movement of the grounding line over time can indicate glacier stability and mass balance. Eric Rignot and colleagues analyzed data from 15 satellite missions to assemble a continental-scale record of grounding line migration around the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2025. The authors tracked the movement of the grounding line and the ice grounding zone, which the line migrates across during tidal cycles. The analysis indicated that the Antarctic Ice Sheet has remained stable over more than 77% of its coastal length, with no grounding line migration detected. Grounding line retreat was concentrated in the northeast and southwest of the Antarctic Peninsula; Wilkes and George V lands in East Antarctica; and the Bellingshausen Sea, Amundsen Sea, and Getz Ice Shelf sectors of West Antarctica. Parts of West Antarctica saw notable retreats of 10 kilometers to more than 40 kilometers. Over the past three decades, the Antarctic Ice Sheet lost a total of around 12,820 square kilometers of grounded ice. According to the authors, the findings could provide a benchmark for projections of future Antarctic Ice Sheet loss and sea level rise.

Journal/
conference: PNAS

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of California, USA

Funder: This work was performed at the University of California Irvine and Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory under a contract with the NASA Cryosphere Science (80NSSC23K0177), MEaSUREs (80NSSC23M0146), and MAP (80NSSC20K1076) programs and the NSF Thwaites-MELT (1739003). E.C.’s research was supported by the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

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