Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting at a 'disastrous' pace

Greenland ice aerial view.
(Image credit: KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images)

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are melting three times faster than 30 years ago, according to research published in the journal Earth Science System Data. The worst melt was in 2019, when the ice sheets lost a combined 675 billion tons, CNN writes.

"This is a huge amount of ice," study lead author Inès Otosaka told CNN. "This is very worrying, of course, because 40 percent of the global population lives in coastal areas." The Greenland sheet has particularly suffered, with study co-author Ruth Mottram calling the figures "disastrous," per The Associated Press.

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Devika Rao, The Week US

 Devika Rao has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022, covering science, the environment, climate and business. She previously worked as a policy associate for a nonprofit organization advocating for environmental action from a business perspective.