In 1968, a glaciologist from Ohio State University named John Mercer wrote a paper about the dangers of the Antarctic ice sheet melting. He studied data from glaciers and dry lakes that had evidence of once being submerged and concluded that there must have been a time when all that ice melted, about 120,000 years ago. Then, he argued that it could happen again. The ice could melt and sea levels could rise drastically.
The idea of a hole in the ozone layer, then global warming, and then climate change causing ice sheets to melt is clearly not new. This idea has been around for a long time, but it didn’t really gain momentum until the 1970s. That’s when satellites were first used to measure ice, and ice loss could be definitively shown. In the 1990s, the melting of the ice sheet covering Greenland increased dramatically, doubling the rate it had experienced since the 1960s.
In 2021 and 2022, the amount of ice loss has increased significantly. Both years experienced ice loss above the average for the entire previous decade. Seven of the ten worst negative mass balance years, which are the years that saw glaciers lose the most ice, have occurred since 2010.
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In 2023, mountain glaciers have lost the water equivalent of 26 feet (about 7.9 meters) compared to 1970 levels. Or, in other words, it’s like removing 94 feet (about 28.7 meters) from the top of each glacier. So yes, ice is melting whether some people want to admit it or not. It’s happening relatively quickly, and each year seems to be getting worse. What does this mean for ice sheets and, ultimately, for us? Let’s take a look and see what the experts think.
Ice Caps, Glaciers, or Ice Sheets
Terminology can be confusing when dealing with melting ice because, like many things, the media and ordinary people will often use terms interchangeably. But there are differences between ice caps, ice sheets, and glaciers. While you might think that ice caps are the most significant ice formations, the opposite is actually true. Ice caps are glaciers that cover less than 50,000 square kilometers or 20,000 square miles. Ice sheets are anything larger than that.
When a series of glaciers and ice caps connect, they are called ice fields. All of these are types of glaciers. When the news talks about ice caps melting, they are likely referring to ice sheets or even ice fields because all are at risk, but ice caps have become a more well-known term.
The glaciers located at the Earth’s North and South Poles are usually referred to as polar ice caps. These have traditionally been permanent glaciers. When they melt, it is significant because, for most of history, since we developed the ability to observe such things, we did not expect or know this to be something that could happen so significantly. These are the ice caps that people think of most when they hear about melting ice and climate change. Recently, people have started including Greenland in the equation. But these are just some of the glaciers that can be found around the world. Countries like Chile, Pakistan, Tajikistan and many others also have glaciers that are at risk of melting.
As much as 99% of the world’s freshwater exists in these glaciers. If the ice caps were to melt entirely, it would change the world as we know it.
How Fast Are They Melting?
We know that they are melting, and they are melting faster than we predicted. But what does that actually mean? According to data from NASA, the thickness of Arctic Ice has decreased by 40% since the 1960s. From decade to decade, they are decreasing by about 9%.
Those numbers sound frightening, but percentages have a way of making things seem less impressive than they actually are. So, let’s put this another way. Antarctica is losing about 150 billion tons of ice per year. That’s just melting into the ocean. Dramatic, right? Well, Greenland is losing 270 billion tons of ice per year. On August 1, 2019, Greenland lost 12.5 billion tons of ice on that single day.
Since 1985, Greenland has lost one trillion tons, or about 1.1 trillion tons, just from the retreat of glaciers. In 2024, Greenland has lost 30 million tons per hour, 20% more than previously estimated.
Part of the problem is that the Arctic suffers from Arctic amplification, a phenomenon where it warms about four times faster than the rest of the world.
The website The World Counts keeps a running tally of ice melted to date for those who like real-time apocalyptic data. The first month of 2025 saw about 77 billion tons of ice melt globally. Within a year, you can expect 750 billion tons to disappear. That’s 24,000 tons every second, which is such a mind-boggling number that it’s hard to even think about what to do with it.
So, here’s the time for big numbers. Bigger than 750 billion tons. Since we started monitoring this sort of thing in 1961, up until almost a decade ago in 2016, the world lost 9 trillion tons of ice. And we’ve already seen that the loss in Greenland has increased by over 20% from what was previously estimated.
How much time do we have left? Well, spoiler alert, not very much.
How Long Will They Last?
Scientists at the US atmospheric research center have given the Arctic Ice an expiration date. According to their calculations, by 2040, the ice will be completely gone. By 2100, it is feared that a third of all the glaciers in the world, not just the Arctic, will be gone.
Some predictions estimate all Arctic ice will melt in the 2030s. All it would take is summers that continue to get hotter and hotter every year like they have been. 2024 was the hottest year on record, outdoing 2023. In fact, 2015 through 2024 were the 10 hottest years on record. Antarctic sea ice coverage was the lowest it has ever been in 2024, beating out 2023.
Of course, there have been periods of warming throughout history. Skeptics will often hold onto this and other reasons why they believe there is no crisis and that warming and cooling are just natural cycles of the earth. The problem is that this time, it’s not entirely natural, and there is plenty of evidence to support that. Humankind has increased the prevalence of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere far beyond what has happened in the past at a more rapid rate.
Regardless of whatever reasons the climate has changed in the past, humankind is causing it to happen now, and we can see the results year after year in how weather patterns are becoming more severe and dangerous as a result. While animals, plants, and humans may be able to adapt to this over time, the relatively rapid change is still causing a lot of problems.
What Happens If They Disappear?
The most obvious problem with ice caps melting is that all that ice turns into water. All that water has to go somewhere, and that means sea levels will rise. One prediction from the intergovernmental panel on climate change warns that by 2100, we could see sea levels rise as much as 10 to 23 inches (about 25 to 58 centimeters). If everything in Greenland disappeared, sea levels could rise by as much as 20 feet (about 6 meters). Greenland and Antarctica together could wipe out coastal cities like New York, Los Angeles, and most of Florida.
For some perspective on what that means, one foot of sea level rise equates to about 100 feet of coastline that will be underwater. That means, potentially, coastlines will recede by 200 feet (about 61 meters) worldwide. Think about all the cities that are right on the coast today.
This sea level rise will also introduce saltwater into freshwater aquifers and contaminate many sources of freshwater. This could impact the environment as well as farmland and city water supplies for places that manage to avoid the potential flooding.
It is estimated that flood losses due to sea level rise could cost as much as $1 trillion by the middle of this century.
Heat waves will also become a serious threat, as we already see every year. But they get worse as we lose more ice. Ice is good at reflecting light and heat back into the atmosphere. Without the ice, the earth absorbs that heat. That means summers will be hotter and more deadly.
This is partly because, as glaciers melt and the permafrost in the Arctic follows suit, a significant amount of methane will be released into the atmosphere. This is a potent greenhouse gas and will increase the effects of global warming, melting more ice and releasing more methane. As much as one billion tons of methane could be released by 2100.
The other side of the coin is that winters will ironically be colder. The polar jet streams, which are now less stable thanks to warmer air in the Arctic, will travel further and bring worse storms to areas that aren’t used to them.
What If the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Collapses?
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is an ocean current that acts, in a way, like a conveyor belt. It circulates cold water and warm water, exchanging the two throughout the Atlantic Ocean. Warm water from the Gulf Stream goes all the way up to the Arctic, and cold water goes down below. The saltier water eventually heads north, sinks, and pushes warmer water to the surface along the coast of Europe.
This circulation is a major part of what keeps our climate relatively stable and reliable from season to season and year to year. However, rising global temperatures and melting ice are affecting the AMOC and slowing it down, according to expert estimates. Too much warm water and too much freshwater are disrupting the system. Some fear it may collapse entirely.
If it slows down or collapses too severely, the exchange of heat will not happen in the same way. European waters will be colder, affecting the climate across Europe and Africa. Some places will see increased rainfall, while others will suffer from drought, and rainy seasons will shift. Sea levels on the east coast of North America could rise dramatically, storms will become much more severe, and the damage could be impossible to recover from. Temperature shifts could see ice age-like conditions form in the northern hemisphere and more heat in the south. But we don’t know for sure.
Are We Doomed?
As bad as many of the numbers we shared make it seem, you need to remember that these are worst-case scenarios and speculation for the most part. Also, the general prediction is that about a third of the ice will be gone by 2100. No one is really making concrete speculations about when, or if, all the ice caps and glaciers in the world will melt.
If it does happen, it will literally be centuries from now. It may even be more than a thousand years. While it’s hard to have a lot of hope about the future, there is always the possibility that people will take this more seriously by then and actually do something about it. And, since this is the future, we could easily have the technology to deal with it fairly easily.
source: emka.web.id