Powerful winds are vaporizing and removing massive amounts of snow from Antarctica, according to a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The finding could shift estimates of how much the ice-covered continent is contributing to sea level rise.

At the end of its melt season, the Arctic’s ice cover fell to the fourth lowest extent in the satellite record, both in the daily and monthly average, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

Greenhouse gas emissions from thawing Arctic permafrost could result in an additional $43 trillion in economic impacts by the end of the twenty-second century, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Cambridge and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). 

Arctic sea ice extent appears to have reached its minimum extent on September 11, 2015, measured at 4.41 million square kilometers (1.70 million square miles).