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As climate changes, how do Earth's frozen areas affect our planet and impact society?

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Spotlight
Several representatives from NSIDC will be attending the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting 2023 to share their expertise and connect with Earth Science experts. We've compiled a list of all sessions in which NSIDC staff are involved, including presentations, posters, workshops and other discussions.
Glaciers, or accumulations of ice and snow that slowly flow over land, are disappearing as the planet heats up because of climate change. In this image, melt from a glacier extending from the Juneau Icefield in Alaska forms braided streams as the glacier retreats. The Global Land Ice Measurements from Space initiative is working to document disappearing glaciers.
Spotlight
Melting glaciers and ice sheets are already the biggest contributors to global sea level rise. Yet, of the approximately 200,000 glaciers in the world currently, no database exists to identify which glaciers have disappeared, and when. The Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) initiative, an international project designed to monitor the world's glaciers primarily using data from optical satellite instruments, aims to change that.
Line graph of monthly October ice extent for 1979 to 2023 shows a decline of 9.5 percent per decade.
Analysis - Sea Ice Today

As the long Arctic winter sets in, sea ice extent has increased at a faster than average pace. By the end of October, the ice cover had reached the Siberian coast, while open water persisted along the coasts of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

Graph of ice sheet mass loss, 1992-2021
Analysis - Ice Sheets Today
NSIDC has launched an upgraded and streamlined Ice Sheets Today website. The new site replaces the site previously known as Greenland Today and Antarctica Today. Ice Sheets Today offers easy access to melt statistics and scientific analysis of ice sheet conditions.