The claim: Greenland's ice loss trend slowed over the last decade, ice mass now growing

Despite widespread reports that the Greenland ice sheet is rapidly losing ice, some social media users are claiming the opposite is true.

“Greenland ice melt slowed significantly during the past decade,” reads a Nov. 18 Facebook post. “The trend has now swung to one of growth.”

The post, which accumulated several hundred interactions in a month, concluded, “Media tizzies of ‘mass ice loss’ are wildly unfounded.”

The post links an article that has been shared on Facebook and Twitter.

However, the claim is wrong.

Satellite observations confirm Greenland continues to lose ice. There has been no reversal in the trend, according to experts.

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USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the claim for comment.

Greenland losing hundreds of billions of metric tons of ice each year

The social media users claim data from Danish Meteorological Institute shows the slowing and reversal of Greenland ice loss.

However, this is wrong, Martin Stendel, a climate scientist at the Danish institute, told USA TODAY in an email.

"There has been no reversal whatsoever," he said. "Unfortunately, it happens all the time that people misinterpret our analyses."

The institute's Greenland ice sheet mass change data shows substantial losses around the margins of the ice sheet since 2002. It also shows small increases in...

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