A new study by Chinese scientists from Tongji University has shocked the climate community: Antarctica, which had been losing ice at a catastrophic rate for decades, suddenly started gaining it. From 2021 to 2023, the icy continent not only compensated for some of the losses, but also reduced the rise in global sea levels by almost 15%.
This reversal in the climate trend, described in the Daily Mail , has become an argument for skeptics who are already claiming that the climate crisis is exaggerated or even invented.
Between 2002 and 2020, Antarctica lost about 120 billion tons of ice annually. This led to a 5.99 mm rise in sea levels by 2020. However, the trend suddenly reversed in 2021, when heavy snowfall brought moisture to the continent, which formed new layers of ice. As a result, Antarctica gained about 108 billion tons of ice each year during these years.
These changes were particularly noticeable in East Antarctica—Queen Maud Land, Enderby Land, and other regions that experienced heavy snowfall.
The study's findings have become a weapon in the hands of climate policy critics, with some, including Cambridge University professor Mike Halm, arguing that "climate alarmists" are overreacting by portraying climate change as an apocalypse.
According to the professor, climate change is not a "comet flying to Earth," but a multifactorial process that does not always lead to catastrophes. And the new data only confirm the complexity of global climate processes that do not fit into simple schemes.
At the same time, other studies show positive changes. In particular, the ozone hole over Antarctica is gradually closing thanks to international efforts to ban ozone-depleting substances.
In addition, a team of scientists from Cambridge is developing technology that will allow artificially growing ice in the Arctic using seawater injection. This should slow down or even stop the melting of ice in the northern regions of the planet.
Despite the record ice growth over the past three years, scientists are warning against jumping to conclusions. Antarctica has still suffered a total loss of nearly 1.85 trillion tons of ice over two decades, and the temporary improvement is the exception rather than the new norm.
