Currently, Pine Island Glacier together with its neighbouring Thwaites glacier are responsible for about 10% of the ongoing increase in global sea level.

Since 2012, the rate of ice loss from Antarctica has tripled when compared to the previous two decades, owing to widespread glacier speed-up (Mouginot et al., 2014) and thinning (Shepherd et al., 2019) in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Sea sectors in response to the circulation of warm water under the region's ice shelves (Jacobs et al., 2011).