The Greenland ice sheet has lost more ice than it gained for the 30th consecutive year, according to new calculations by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS). During the 2025–2026 melt year, which ended in August, its total mass fell by around 173 billion tonnes, extending an uninterrupted period of annual losses that began in 1996–1997.
The ice sheet covers about 80% of Greenland and is one of the largest stores of frozen freshwater on Earth. Its annual mass balance measures both the ice it gains, mainly through snowfall, and what it loses through surface melting, meltwater runoff and glaciers carrying ice towards the ocean.
According to GEUS’s latest assessment, the last melt year in which the ice sheet did not record an overall loss was 1995–1996.
Thirty years of Greenland ice sheet losses are a climate signal
The length of the sequence is particularly significant because climatologists generally use 30-year periods to distinguish long-term climate trends from shorter-term weather variability.
“There are large variations from year to year, but when we look at developments over three decades, the picture is clear. The ice sheet has lost mass year after year,” Signe Hillerup Larsen, a researcher at the Department of Glaciology and Climate at GEUS, said.
The 2025–2026 loss was larger than the approximately 130 billion tonnes recorded in the previous melt year, but remained well below the largest annual loss in the modern record. In 2012, Greenland lost around 458 billion tonnes of ice.
Variations between individual years can depend heavily on weather conditions. GEUS said warm and sunny weather arrived over Greenland from late July into August this year, when incoming solar radiation was already decreasing. The resulting surface melting was therefore lower than it would have been if similar conditions had occurred earlier in the summer.
This does not change the longer-term trend. GEUS expects the ice sheet to continue losing mass as the climate warms, although annual losses will continue to vary.
Greenland’s shrinking ice sheet is raising global sea levels
The consequences extend far beyond Greenland. Water released from land-based ice eventually enters the ocean and contributes directly to global sea-level rise.
GEUS estimates that the Greenland ice sheet has lost approximately 6,205 billion tonnes of ice over the past 40 years, from 1986–1987 to 2025–2026. That loss alone has raised global mean sea level by slightly more than 1.7 centimetres.
The longer-term contribution is already substantial. Copernicus Climate Change Service estimates that losses from the Greenland ice sheet account for around 20% of current global sea-level rise.
The annual mass balance is determined by several processes. Snowfall adds ice to the system, while surface melting removes it. At the same time, glaciers transport ice from the interior towards Greenland’s coasts, where icebergs break off into the ocean. Researchers combine these processes to calculate the ice sheet’s total mass balance.
Scientists are also watching the North Atlantic currents
Greenland’s ice loss also matters because the water entering the North Atlantic is fresh rather than salty. Scientists are studying how increasing freshwater input could affect the density and circulation of ocean water.
One of the main systems being monitored is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a large network of Atlantic currents that redistributes heat around the planet and contributes to the relatively mild climate of north-western Europe and Scandinavia.
The precise effect of Greenland’s melting on the AMOC remains uncertain. GEUS itself stressed that uncertainty in August when announcing a new research project on changes in Atlantic ocean circulation. Researchers are examining earlier warm periods in Earth’s climate history to better understand how major ice loss and changes in the AMOC may interact.
The latest annual figure therefore matters less as an isolated record than as part of a much longer sequence. After 30 consecutive years of negative mass balance, Greenland’s shrinking ice sheet now covers an entire standard climatological reference period. Researchers will continue to monitor whether future reductions in global warming eventually become visible in that trend.
