How much is 5,000 gigatonnes of ice?

This is the amount of ice lost from the polar ice caps that NASA’s original GRACE mission observed from 2002 to 2017.

During the 15-year lifetime of the original GRACE mission (2002-2017), 5,641 gigatonnes of ice of were lost in Greenland and Antarctica. Ninety-nine percent of the world’s freshwater ice is located in these ice sheets.

This is enough to cover Texas in a sheet of ice 26 feet high.

The Math:

Antarctica lost 1,870 gigatonnes since 2002

Greenland lost 3,771 gigatonnes since 2002

5,641 gigatonnes total combined

Area of Texas: 696,241 km² (Texas Almanac)

Ice density = 1.091 km³ / gigatonne

5,000 gigatonnes * 1.091 km³ / gigatonne = ice height * 696,241

ice height = (5,000 gigatonnes * 1.091 km³ / gigatonne) / 696,241 km² = 0.00783493072 km = 7.83493072 m = 25.70515328084 feet

Learn more: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2933/visualizing-the-quantities-of-climate-change/