We came across a post on X with the claim that the ice sheets in Antarctica are gaining mass, reversing the effects of climate change over the past two decades. This has allegedly left experts “confused,” implying that climate change may not be real.
The post references an article by the New York Post, an American tabloid news outlet, which claims that the Antarctic Ice Sheet grew by 108 gigatons (or 108 cubic kilometres) between 2021 and 2023. This phenomenon appears to contradict the general discourse that climate change and global warming are causing the Antarctic Ice Sheet to melt rapidly. As such, we decided to take a closer look at the claim to assess its veracity.
The bigger picture
The Antarctic continent is made up of three major ice sheets: the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains about 25,400,000 cubic kilometres of ice, which, if melted, would raise global sea levels by about 58 metres.
A 2023 study by researchers from France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (National Centre for Scientific Research) and Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute found that Antarctica is warming at twice the global average rate.
In addition, research by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) found that Antarctica lost about 150 gigatons of ice per year between 2002 and 2020. This loss has contributed to a global sea level rise of 0.4 millimetres per year due to climate change.
These findings were based on data gathered through NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites between 2002 – 2017 and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellites from 2018 onwards.
As such, in theory, the growth of the Antarctic Ice Sheets could be a positive sign in our efforts to combat climate change.
However, we have also observed that some climate change sceptics are highlighting this selective information as proof that global warming is a hoax. Revisiting the X post that shared this claim, it questions the validity of current scientific research and discourse on climate change.
The post includes a widely debunked 2009 clip of former American Vice-President Al Gore, in which he misinterpreted a scientist’s findings and inaccurately claimed that the Arctic would be “ice-free” within five years. The inclusion of this clip appears intended to suggest that scientists and public figures have misrepresented climate science in the past, potentially as a way to undermine the credibility of decades of peer-reviewed research.
Breaking down Antarctica’s ice gain
To assess the validity of the claim, we first examined the source cited in the New York Post article, a 2025 study by researchers from Tongji University in Shanghai, China. Published in the Science China Earth Sciences journal, the study focused on changes in four glacier basins within the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. It used satellite data from NASA’s GRACE and GRACE-FO missions, between 2002 – 2024, which was the same source of data used by Caltech’s JPL in the research referenced earlier.
[The mass changes observed by researchers from Tongji University between 2002 – 2024, including a gradual increase between 2020 – 2023, taken from their report.]
The Tongji University team found that all four glacier basins experienced some form of mass gain between 2021 and 2023. To see if other research supported these findings, we looked into a related 2023 study by the same team. Focusing on the period between 2021 – 2022, the team found that “highly enhanced precipitation” brought about by prevailing westerly winds could have caused the mass gain in the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Similarly, a 2025 study published in the Climate and Atmospheric Science journal proposed that the mass gain observed by the team from Tongji University could be attributed to three consecutive years of La Nina conditions between 2020 – 2023. These conditions are known to bring “cooler” water to the Antarctic continental shelf below sea level, which can slow down the melting of the ice sheet.
However, it is important to note that a three-year period may be too short to draw long-term conclusions about the health of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Responding to a similar query from Reuters in 2024, Julia Andreasen, a PhD candidate in the Land and Atmospheric Science programme at the University of Minnesota, emphasised that a minimum of 30 years of data would be needed to establish accurate and reliable assessments.
While isolated data points may appear to contradict broader trends, the overwhelming body of scientific evidence shows that the Earth is warming, and polar ice loss is accelerating. Although there has been a short-term mass gain in part of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, it is misleading and false to claim this means that climate change is a hoax.
Antarctica continues to lose ice overall, contributing to global sea-level rise. The post on X misrepresents a short-term, region-specific anomaly as evidence against decades of consistent global climate science.
Given how climate issues are increasingly politicised, it is understandable that such posts may raise questions, especially when coupled with older, decontextualised statements from public figures. Therefore, it is important to approach such claims with caution and verify information, particularly when it contradicts well-established scientific consensus, before sharing or drawing conclusions.
