Concerning news has been unveiled by researchers who said earth's remaining fossil fuels are enough to melt all of Antarctica if burned. It can lead a 50 to 60 meter rise in sea level. If this happens then many highly populated cities can go under water.

The part of the ice sheet that rests on bedrock below sea level is most vulnerable and holds an equivalent of 19 metres of sea level rise. CSIRO physical oceanographer and climate scientist Dr Stephen Rintoul, who was onboard the Australian icebreaker research ship Aurora Australis when it managed to reach the remote glacier, said the region that the Totten drains holds enough ice to produce an equivalent 3.9 metres of global sea level rise.

Among the highly populated cities, where more than a billion people live, include New York City and Washington, DC and they can go under water. Carnegie Institution for Science's Ken Caldeira said, "Our findings show that if we do not want to melt Antarctica, we can't keep taking fossil fuel carbon out of the ground and just dumping it into the atmosphere as CO2 like we've been doing".

Ken affirmed that their study explains that burning coal, oil and gas can risk East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The researchers said Antarctica has already started to lose ice, but there are many factors that will determine the ice sheet's future.

The factors include greenhouse gas-caused atmospheric warming, ocean warming and the effects of additional snowfall. To reach at the above conclusion, the researchers have used modeling through which they have studied the ice sheet's evolution over the next 10,000 years.

It is the first study to model the effects of unrestrained fossil-fuel burning on the Antarctic ice sheet. Currently, Antarctica is adding just 10% of rise in sea levels. But if emissions are not kept under control then it can lead to a stunning ice melt off.

While the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would respond more quickly to climate change, Dr Rintoul said the new evidence warranted shifting more of the scientific focus to the east.