About 90 percent of the ice loss in parts of Antarctica occurs underwater, a figure much higher than researchers originally believed, Nature World News reported.
"Understanding how the largest ice mass on the planet loses ice to the oceans is one of the most fundamental things we need to know for Antarctica," said Jonathan Bamber of the University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences according to Nature World News. "Until recently, we assumed that most of the ice was lost through icebergs."
Bamber conducted a study with researchers from University of California and Utrecht University and found it was crucial to find out about ice on the continent.
"Now we realize that melting underneath the ice shelves by the ocean is equally important and for some places, far more important," he said. "This knowledge is crucial for understanding how the ice sheets interact now, and in the future, to changes in climate."
According to Nature World News, 2,800 cubic kilometers go away from the Antarctic ice sheet each year. However, scientists thought, calving, or big chunks of ice breaking off from glaciers and floating out to sea was the root cause of the continent losing ice for decades.
With the aid of satellite and climate modeling data, a team of scientists from the three universities found the levels of ice on the continent had the same kind of influence on how much ice is lost overall as calving, and maybe more Nature World reported.
The amount of ice that forms the water due to melting versus calving differs immensely because the 90 percent can be led to melting in some but not all areas, according to the researchers. Melting in other areas on the continent adds up to 10 percent of ice it loses.
