Climatic conditions are threatening Antarctic glaciers as the region could face irreversible ice loss. As per researchers, if East Antarctic's Totten glacier would melt then it would lead to a 10 feet sea level rise in America.

The researchers affirmed that warm water that flows beneath the Antarctic glacier is the main reason considered for melting of the glacier. Through two earlier unknown pathways, the warm water is flowing from the ocean's depths and is reducing the thickness of Totten Glacier severely.

Earlier research suggested that warmer and saltier water could be flowing beneath colder water off the coast of Antarctic. The new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience has unveiled that warmer water is moving up on the seafloor towards the coastline.

The researchers have mapped the topography using ice-penetrating radar, laser altimeters and other instruments. Study's lead researcher Jamin Greenbaum, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics, was of the view, "We now know there are avenues for the warmest waters in East Antarctica to access the most sensitive areas of Totten Glacier".

Such processes are also leading to the thinning of ice in West Antarctica. With rise in temperature, more snowfall will happen in Antarctica. But the researchers also said that it will lose more ice than it will gain.

The research being led by scientists from Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) has unveiled that each degree Celsius of warming in the region could increase snowfall in Antarctic by around 5%.

Study's lead author Katja Frieler, a climate impacts and vulnerabilities researcher at PIK, said that warmer air leads to more moisture resulting into the production of more precipitation. In cold region like Antarctica, it takes the form of snowfall.