Why Antarctica’s mass is growing: for now, more snowfall is outpacing accelerated ice discharge
In recent years, Antarctica has recorded an unusual reversal in its ice balance: after a long period of net loss, the mass of the Antarctic ice sheet has shifted to net growth since 2020. At first glance, this may sound like news that refutes warnings about climate change, but the real picture is considerably more complex. New research, published in early February 2026 in the journal
Communications Earth & Environment, shows that the ice sheet is not growing because less ice is being lost, but because at the same time the continent has begun receiving exceptionally much more snowfall than before. That additional snow, at least for now, offsets and even exceeds the intensified discharge of ice into the ocean.
At the center of the story is a delicate balance between two processes. On the one hand, glaciers and ice shelves continue to lose ice through melting, fracturing and iceberg calving, as well as accelerated flow toward the sea. On the other hand, snow accumulation has increased in parts of the continent, meaning the amount of new ice added to the surface each year has risen. Scientists warn that this does not mean the problem has disappeared. On the contrary, the latest data suggest that Antarctica is now in a highly unstable phase in which several years of heavier snowfall can temporarily alter the overall statistics, but not remove the underlying causes of the long-term risk to global sea level.
What exactly the new study shows
The study was conducted by researchers from the Danish Meteorological Institute, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Canterbury, and the paper was produced as part of projects linked to the European Space Agency’s climate change monitoring program. The team analyzed changes in the mass of the Antarctic ice sheet from 2002 to the end of 2024, combining satellite gravimetry, atmospheric reanalyses, and high-resolution regional climate models.
According to the study’s results, Antarctica mostly lost between 90 and 142 gigatons of ice per year from the beginning of the century until 2020. After 2016, a slowdown in that negative trend was observed, and from 2020 onward a net gain in mass has been recorded. The authors state that in the 2020–2024 period this amounted to average growth of about 67.5 gigatons per year. But the same paper simultaneously records nearly 100 gigatons per year greater ice loss through dynamic discharge from land to the ocean compared with the 2003 to 2019 period. In other words, the ice sheet did not “calm down”; it is just that the inflow of new snow in the observed years was even greater than the larger loss.
This is one of the most important conclusions of the new paper, because it changes the oversimplified perception that growth in total mass automatically means stabilization of the system. Scientists very clearly warn that this is not a reduction in danger, but a temporary reversal in the mass balance. If the snow regime returns closer to earlier values while the accelerated outflow of ice toward the ocean remains at an elevated level, the overall balance could return to negative territory again.
Why more snow is falling now
The key explanation lies in the atmosphere. The research shows that since 2020 so-called atmospheric rivers have been reaching Antarctica more often and more intensely—narrow and long bands of air filled with large quantities of water vapor. Such systems can transport enormous amounts of moisture over thousands of kilometers. When they arrive above the very cold Antarctic environment, that moisture can turn into heavy snowfall.
The authors found that atmospheric rivers in the more recent period were especially pronounced over the Antarctic Peninsula, Queen Maud Land, and Wilkes Land in East Antarctica. These are precisely the areas where satellite data showed the strongest regional mass gains. Along with the increased activity of these atmospheric rivers, stronger westerly winds also played an important role by further helping to transport moisture toward the continent.
The physics behind this is well known. Warmer air can hold more water vapor, so as temperatures rise, the potential for intense precipitation also increases. In climatology, this is often summarized through the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, according to which the atmosphere can retain about seven percent more moisture for every degree Celsius of warming. In cold polar regions, this does not necessarily mean more rain, but very often more snow, especially when air from the ocean arrives over the icy continent under conditions favorable to precipitation.
How important is sea ice loss in this story
An additional question was whether the reduction of sea ice around Antarctica contributes to greater evaporation and thus to greater snowfall over land. The researchers tested this using a regional climate model driven by the ERA5 reanalysis and satellite records of sea ice concentration. The conclusion is nuanced: sea ice loss does indeed increase moisture availability, but its contribution is not the main explanation for the recent reversal in the mass balance.
According to the estimates in the paper, sea ice reduction can explain roughly 11 percent of the winter increase in snowfall and about 3 percent of the summer increase. This means that the factor is real, but limited. Scientists link the greater part of the change to large-scale atmospheric patterns, above all to more frequent and stronger atmospheric rivers and changes in air circulation. In other words, more open water around the continent can help place more moisture into the atmosphere, but the main mechanism that carries that moisture deep over Antarctica is still changes in the behavior of the atmosphere on a broader scale.
This is an important distinction for understanding future projections as well. If the public were to focus only on the claim that “less sea ice means more snow, so that is good,” the key problem would be overlooked: the same climate system that occasionally intensifies snowfall simultaneously warms the ocean, weakens ice shelves, and accelerates losses at the edges of the ice sheet.
Why mass growth does not mean the danger has passed
The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. According to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if all the ice in Antarctica were to melt, global sea level would rise by about 58 meters. Such a scenario is not likely in the short term, but even much smaller shifts in the ice sheet’s balance have enormous consequences for coastal cities, infrastructure, agriculture, ports, and natural ecosystems around the world.
That is precisely why scientists are not interested in just one number for one year, but in the relationship between surface accumulation and dynamic loss. Surface accumulation increases mass when more snow falls than is lost through evaporation, sublimation, and surface melting. Dynamic loss, on the other hand, refers to the ice that glaciers and ice shelves deliver to the ocean. In the new study, the most important signal is that this second process is still increasing. This means that the current net mass growth depends on a weather-driven excess of snow, not on stronger stability of the ice sheet.
Researchers warn that Antarctica is now “finely balanced.” A few years with fewer atmospheric rivers could easily return the total balance to the negative side. Even more importantly, if floating ice shelves continue to thin and disintegrate, the glaciers they currently slow down could accelerate further. In that case, increased snowfall would no longer be enough to compensate for the growing outflow of ice into the ocean.
What satellites actually measure when they talk about ice mass
One of the reasons why such research is possible today is the development of satellite gravimetry. The GRACE and GRACE Follow-On missions, jointly led by NASA and German institutions, measure changes in Earth’s gravitational field. Two satellites fly one behind the other and measure changes in the distance between them with extreme precision. When they pass over an area where mass on Earth has changed, for example because of ice loss or gain, the gravitational attraction changes as well, and so does the distance between them.
NASA states that GRACE measured the spacing between the satellites using a K-band microwave system, while the instrument on the GRACE-FO mission can detect distance changes on the order of one micron. These seemingly tiny changes, combined with other data, allow scientists to reconstruct how the mass of water and ice changes over time. This does not mean that the satellite “sees” every individual iceberg, but rather that from changes in gravity it can calculate where mass on the planet’s surface is increasing and where it is decreasing.
Such data are especially valuable precisely because Antarctica includes vast, hard-to-reach areas. Without long satellite time series, it would be almost impossible to monitor the continent as a whole and distinguish short-term anomalies from more serious changes lasting for years.
The broader climate picture: more snow and more risk at the same time
In Antarctica today, several processes are taking place simultaneously that may at first glance seem contradictory. A warmer atmosphere can generally hold more moisture, which can increase the amount of snowfall over cold parts of the continent. At the same time, a warmer ocean can erode ice shelves more strongly from below, and their weakening opens the way for faster discharge of land ice toward the sea. In other words, climate change does not act in only one direction, nor does it produce the same effect in every part of the system.
It is precisely this combination of processes that explains why a temporary net gain in mass can occur in recent years even though long-term risks are not diminishing. NASA’s visualization of changes in ice mass shows that Antarctica still lost on average about 135 gigatons of ice per year between 2002 and 2025, contributing to global sea-level rise. The new study does not refute that broader picture, but rather identifies within it a more recent, five-year shift caused by extraordinarily large snow accumulation.
That is also why scientists avoid simple formulations about Antarctica’s “recovery.” This is more a short-term meteorological-climatic overlap in which one mechanism is temporarily stronger than the other. Whether such a relationship will last is not yet clear. The answer will depend on the future frequency of atmospheric rivers, the movement of sea ice, ocean temperature, and changes in the dynamics of glaciers and ice shelves.
Why this topic matters beyond polar science
Changes in Antarctica are not a remote scientific curiosity without consequences for the rest of the world. The balance of Antarctic ice is directly linked to future sea-level rise, but also to oceanographic processes that affect the distribution of heat, salinity, and nutrients in the world’s seas. Fresh water entering the ocean from the ice sheet can alter the density of seawater and thereby circulation patterns that have climatic consequences far beyond the South Pole.
In addition, the new study is a reminder that the climate system often responds in nonlinear and seemingly paradoxical ways. In public debate, climate change is often simplified into a few recognizable images: warmer air, less ice, more melting. In reality, warmer and moister air over very cold regions can at the same time mean more snow. But that is precisely why it is important to look at the system’s overall balance, not an isolated symptom. More snow over Antarctica does not refute global warming; on the contrary, it may be one of its expressions under the conditions of the southern polar system.
For now, the most accurate way to put it is that Antarctica has entered a period of intensified oscillations and very delicate balance. The net mass growth since 2020 is not proof that the problem has disappeared, but a signal that two opposing forces are meeting on the icy continent: increased snow accumulation and accelerated ice loss toward the ocean. As long as the second force continues to strengthen, any assessment of “recovery” must remain very cautious. Current data therefore speak more of a temporary reprieve in the overall balance than of a lasting reversal of the climatic direction over Antarctica.
Sources:- Nature Communications Earth & Environment – scientific paper on the recent reversal in the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet, the role of atmospheric rivers, westerly winds, and sea ice (link)- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – overview of changes in Antarctic ice mass from 2002 to 2025 based on the GRACE and GRACE-FO missions (link)- NASA Earth – official description of the GRACE mission and how the satellites measure changes in Earth’s gravitational field (link)- JPL / GRACE-FO – explanation of the microwave instrument that precisely measures changes in distance between satellites on the order of microns (link)- National Snow and Ice Data Center – basic data on the Antarctic ice sheet, including an estimate of a possible sea-level rise of about 58 meters in the event of complete melting (link)- NASA Science – overview of the physical basis according to which a warmer atmosphere can contain approximately 7 percent more water vapor per degree Celsius of warming (link)
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