Greenland vs Northern America: Permanent snow and glaciers — Area from MODIS

Greenland
186,005 1000 ha
in 2024
Northern America
218,125 1000 ha
in 2024
Greenland rank
2nd
Northern America rank
3rd

Permanent snow and glaciers — Area from MODIS over time

  • Greenland
  • Northern America
050.0k100.0k150.0k200.0k200120122024

How they compare

Northern America currently reports 218,125 1000 ha against 186,005 1000 ha in Greenland, a difference of 32,120 1000 ha.

That makes Northern America's figure about 1.2 times Greenland's.

Across all 24 years both countries report, Northern America has been ahead every year.

Greenland ranks 2nd and Northern America ranks 3rd of 223 countries.

Northern America has averaged higher in every one of the 3 decades both report.

Head to head by decade

Decade Greenland Northern America Difference Ahead
2000s 186,132 1000 ha 220,060 1000 ha 33,928 1000 ha Northern America
2010s 186,526 1000 ha 218,933 1000 ha 32,406 1000 ha Northern America
2020s 176,541 1000 ha 208,952 1000 ha 32,411 1000 ha Northern America

Averages of every year both report within each decade.

Frequently asked questions

Which has higher permanent snow and glaciers — area from modis, Greenland or Northern America?
Northern America, at 218,125 1000 ha against 186,005 1000 ha in Greenland as of 2024.
What is the difference in permanent snow and glaciers — area from modis between Greenland and Northern America?
32,120 1000 ha, with Northern America ahead.
How many years of comparable data are there for Greenland and Northern America?
24 years are reported by both, from 2001 to 2024.
How do Greenland and Northern America rank globally for permanent snow and glaciers — area from modis?
Greenland ranks 2nd and Northern America ranks 3rd of 223 countries.
Where does this data come from?
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, published as Permanent snow and glaciers — Area from MODIS. Statizoid refreshes it automatically from the source and publishes the full history for both places.

Individual pages

Share, cite or embed this page

Cite this page

Greenland vs Northern America: Permanent snow and glaciers — Area from MODIS. Statizoid, drawing on Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved 28 August 2026, from https://environment.statizoid.com/compare/permanent-snow-and-glaciers-area-from-modis/greenland/northern-america/

Embed or link this data

Paste this into a page to link back to these figures. The data itself is free to reuse under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO (FAO); please keep the attribution.

<a href="https://environment.statizoid.com/compare/permanent-snow-and-glaciers-area-from-modis/greenland/northern-america/">Greenland vs Northern America: Permanent snow and glaciers — Area from MODIS</a> — Statizoid

About this data

Indicator
Permanent snow and glaciers — Area from MODIS
Unit
1000 ha
Source
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Licence
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO (FAO)
Coverage
269 places, 6,390 data points, 2001–2024
Last refreshed

The FAOSTAT domain on Land Cover data under the Agri-Environmental Indicators section contains land cover information organized by the land cover classes of the international standard system for Environmental and Economic Accounting Central Framework (SEEA CF). The land cover information is compiled from publicly available Global Land Cover (GLC) maps: a) MODIS land cover types based on the Land Cover Classification System, LCCS; b) The European Spatial Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) annual land cover maps produced by the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)-Geomatics and now under the European Copernicus Program; c) The annual land cover maps which were produced under the European Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS) (CGLS land cover, containing discrete land cover categorization), with spatial resolution 100m; and d) the WorldCover maps of the European Space Agency, produced at 10m resolution.