Skip to content News Climate Hidden Antarctic lakes could supercharge sea level rise Subglacial water may boost sea levels by over 2 meters by 2300 The Antarctic Ice Sheet holds around 90 percent of all ice on Earth. But human-caused climate change is driving it to shed an average of 150 billion metric tons of ice each year, raising sea levels around the world. Mario Tama/Getty Images By Nikk Ogasa 43 seconds ago Beneath the great, white expanse of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, a mysterious realm of streams and lakes lies out of sight. Much about this hidden water world remains poorly understood. But a new study suggests that if scientists continue to overlook it, they might greatly underestimate global sea level rise. Factoring this subglacial water into computer simulations could boost projections of sea level rise over the next two centuries by about two meters, researchers report April 7 in Nature Communications. For context, scientists estimate that climate warming has raised sea levels by about 0.2 meters over the last century. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.