Tracking the growth of the Antarctic Ice Sheet

How the volume of the Antarctic Ice Sheet has changed over the past 66 million years.

Graph shows how the volume of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (meters sea-level equivalent [mseq]; i.e., how much sea level would rise if it were to melt) has changed from 66 million years ago to today, with uncertainty shown by the 16th–84th percentile range. It is based on a probabilistic model that simulates ice-sheet growth and behaviour through time, accounting for key physical controls (such as bedrock properties) and fully exploring uncertainty in the data using repeated random sampling.
Chart: Eelco Rohling / Thomas GernonSource: Gernon et al. (2026)Get the dataCreated with Datawrapper