New Study: East Antarctica’s Ice Sheet Thickening, Gaining Mass – Especially Since The 1980s

A collection of 85-year-old photographs reveal “growth and stability” of the East Antarctic ice sheet.

Per a new study, more than 2200 historical aerial photos of a 2000 km stretch of ice in East Antarctica have been recently uncovered. The rare images reveal what the glaciers in this region looked like in 1937.

Interestingly, the photos show all these East Antarctic glaciers have remained stable, thickened, gained mass, and/or increased in elevation over the last 85 years, with much of the growth and mass gains occurring since 1985.

There has been no warming in this region since the 1950s. This suggests that “global warming” plays a minimal role in ice thickness changes.

“The terrestrial regions of the EAIS respond mainly to atmospheric forcing. Overall, there has been no significant trends in annual or seasonal mean air temperature in East Antarctica since the 1950s, and mean austral summer air temperature (December to February) from stations in all regions rarely exceeds 0 °C (Fig. 4C). This suggests that surface melting have played a minimal role in the documented ice thickness changes overtime.”

Image Source: Domgaard et al., 2024