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The US space agency NASA says Antarctica is not losing ice due to the effects of global warming, but gaining. The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in 2013 that Antarctic ice is melting due to warmer temperatures, causing sea levels to rise. NASA's findings challenge that theory. Its scientists say satellite observation data since 1992 show ice cover decreasing in the west of the continent, but increasing elsewhere, resulting in overall accumulation. The scientists say snowfall on Antarctica has been increasing for 10,000 years, and that the snow has been compressed into ice. They attribute the rise in sea levels not to melting of Antarctic ice, but to other factors such as unexpected thawing elsewhere. But they add that the rate of gain in the ice sheet has dropped in recent years. Between 1992 and 2001, the ice sheet grew by 112 billion tons per year, but that fell to 82 billion tons annually between 2003 and 2008. The NASA researchers suggest Antarctic ice may start decreasing at some time in the future.