Antarctica is gaining ice, unlike the North Pole, where the polar caps are melting, according to a new scientific report.

But it doesn’t change those scientists’ belief that the planet is getting warmer and the weather is changing.

The thickening ice in parts on Antarctica means the continent isn’t contributing to rising sea levels, contrary to the conclusion of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2013 study. Rather, it is taking water out of the ocean at the rate of a quarter of a millimeter per year, said H. Jay Zwally, a glaciologist at the University of Maryland and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who led the study.

But that little bit of good news doesn’t dent the case for global warming, he said. Climate-change deniers “should not take comfort in this, and they should not use this as proof that their denials are correct.”

More important is the broader weather picture, including changes in the Northern Hemisphere and changes in weather patterns, including how the jet stream flows, he said.

The climate is warming much faster in the Arctic than in the rest of the world, and that is a big reason sea levels are rising, he said. Antarctica isn’t subject to the same weather as the Arctic; most of it remains below freezing in the summer, so there is very little melting of the ice.

Antarctica’s sea ice continues to grow by about 1% every decade, unchanged from findings published in 2002. The Arctic sea ice is now shrinking 1% to 2% a year, rather than shrinking 2% to 3% per decade, as was estimated around 2000.

The latest study was published in the Journal of Glaciology.

Zwally said he now will be watching for an increase in the pace of ice thinning in one area of Western Antarctica, where the climate is warming, and whether there are changes in snowfalls. Warmer areas increase the amount of moisture in the air, and while there was some increase in snowfalls in Western Antarctica, it’s not clear whether that was just part of snowfall fluctuations over five or 10 years, he said.

Snowfall across Antarctica averages about a meter of snow a year — far less than Boston’s record snowfall last winter — which translates into an average of 30 centimeters of ice per year. In some parts of the continent, snowfall equals just two centimeters to three centimeters per year.