What are ice sheets?

Ice sheets are huge blankets of ice that cover big parts of Earth, like a really thick layer of frozen syrup on top of a cake.

Imagine you have a huge freezer, not just the one in your kitchen, but one as big as a city. That’s what an ice sheet is like! It's made up of snow that has been squeezed and frozen for thousands of years. Over time, more snow falls on top, and it turns into thick layers of ice.

Ice sheets are so big they can cover whole continents, like Antarctica or Greenland. Even though they’re super heavy, they move really slowly, kind of like how a glacier might creep down a mountain. This slow movement is why sometimes we see icebergs break off and float into the ocean.

When ice sheets melt, they can cause sea levels to rise, just like when you take the lid off a jar of frozen juice and it starts to expand!