Overview
- Researchers mapped circumpolar grounding-line migration from 1992 to 2025, finding about 12,800 km² of grounded-ice loss, or roughly 442 km² per year.
- Retreat clustered in West Antarctica’s Amundsen and Getz sectors and at outlets on the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of East Antarctica, with Smith (~42 km), Pine Island (~33 km) and Thwaites (~26 km) receding the most.
- More than 77% of the coastline showed little to no shift, including sectors fronting the Ross, Filchner–Ronne and Amery ice shelves.
- Observed patterns align with warm Circumpolar Deep Water intrusions that thin ice shelves over deep, inland-sloping beds, yet substantial retreat on the northeast Antarctic Peninsula lacks a confirmed ocean-heat driver.
- The dataset merges three decades of synthetic-aperture radar from ESA and other agencies with commercial feeds accessed via NASA’s CSDA, yielding the first continent-wide grounding-line benchmark.