Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories

Is Antarctica gaining land ice?

iceberg

An iceberg calved from Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf.

Gallo Images/Getty Images

This fact brief was originally published by Skeptical Science. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Is Antarctica gaining land ice?

No.

While Antarctic sea ice varies seasonally, the continent's land ice has continued to melt at an increasing pace.


Sea ice forms during the Antarctic winter and retreats during the warmer months. Such freeze-thaw cycles have no impact on sea levels since they happen within the ocean. However, Antarctic land ice has seen a net decrease, resulting in a significant increase in fresh water flowing into the sea. That does affect global sea levels.

The behavior of Antarctic land ice varies from region to region. In particular, the West Antarctic Peninsula has seen drastic ice retreat. On the other hand, East Antarctica's land ice has remained relatively stable to date. But if global warming crosses a specific threshold, serious loss is expected to occur. The planet has already moved a third of the way towards that threshold and will pass it within a century, if fossil fuel burning continues unabated.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

Nature Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017

My NASA Data Sea and Land Ice Melt

NASA Ice Sheets


Read More

Posters are displayed next to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as he speaks at a news conference to unveil the Take It Down Act to protect victims against non-consensual intimate image abuse, on Capitol Hill on June 18, 2024 in Washington, DC.

A lawsuit against xAI over AI-generated deepfakes targeting teenage girls exposes a growing crisis in schools. As laws struggle to keep up, this story explores AI accountability, teen safety, and what educators and parents must do now.

Getty Images, Andrew Harnik

Deepfakes: The New Face of Cyberbullying and Why Parents, Schools, and Lawmakers Must Act

As a former teacher who worked in a high school when Snapchat was born, I witnessed the birth of sexting and its impact on teens. I recall asking a parent whether he was checking his daughter’s phone for inappropriate messages. His response was, “sometimes you just don’t want to know.” But the federal lawsuit filed last week against Elon Musk's xAI has put a national spotlight on AI-generated deepfakes and the teenage girls they target. Parents and teachers can’t ignore the crisis inside our schools.

AI Companies Built the Tool. The Grok Lawsuit Says They Own the Damage.

Whether the theory of French prosecutors–that Elon Musk deliberately allowed the sexualized image controversy to grow so that it would drive up activity on the platform and boost the company’s valuation–is true or not, when a company makes the decision to build a tool and knows that it can be weaponized but chooses to release it anyway, they are making a risk-based decision believing that they can act without consequence. The Grok lawsuit could make these types of business decisions much more costly.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sketch collage image of businessman it specialist coding programming app protection security website web isolated on drawing background.

Amazon’s court loss over Just Walk Out highlights a deeper issue: employers are increasingly collecting workers’ biometric data without meaningful consent. Explore the growing conflict between workplace surveillance, privacy rights, and outdated U.S. laws.

Getty Images, Deagreez

The Quiet Rise of Employee Surveillance

Amazon’s loss in court over its attempt to shield the source code behind its Just Walk Out technology is a small win for shoppers, but the bigger story is how employers are quietly collecting biometric data from their own workers.

From factories to Fortune 500 companies, employers are demanding fingerprints, palmprints, retinal scans, facial scans, or even voice prints. These biometric technologies are eroding the boundary between workplace oversight and employee autonomy, often without consent or meaningful regulation.

Keep ReadingShow less
Close up of a woman wearing black, modern spectacles Smart glasses and reality concept with futuristic screen

Apple’s upcoming AI-powered wearables highlight growing privacy risks as the right to record police faces increasing threats. The death of Alex Pretti raises urgent questions about surveillance, civil liberties, and accountability in the digital age.

Getty Images, aislan13

AI Wearables and the Rising Risk of Recording Police

Last month, Apple announced the development of three wearable smart devices, all equipped with built-in cameras. The company has its sights set on 2027 for the release of their new smart glasses, AI pendant, and AirPods with built-in camera, all of which will be AI-functional for users. As the market for wearable products offering smart-recording capabilities expands, so does the risk that comes with how users choose to use the technology.

In Minneapolis in January, Alex Pretti was killed after an encounter with federal agents while filming them with his phone. He was not a suspect in a crime. He was not interfering, but was doing what millions of Americans now instinctively do when they see state power in motion: witnessing.

Keep ReadingShow less
AI - Its Use, Misuse, and Regulation
Glowing ai chip on a circuit board.
Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

AI - Its Use, Misuse, and Regulation

There has been no shortage of articles hailing the opportunity of AI and ones forecasting disaster from AI. I understand the good uses to which AI could be put, but I am also well aware of the ways in which AI is dangerous or will denigrate our lives as thinking human beings.

First, the good uses. There is no question that AI can outthink human beings, regardless of how famous or knowledgeable, because of the amount of information it can process in a short amount of time. The most powerful accounts I've read have been in the field of medical research: doctors have fed facts into AI, asking for a diagnosis or a possible remedy, and AI has come up with remarkable answers beyond the human mind's capability.

Keep ReadingShow less