Last week's NASA study 'Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses', claimed that ice accumulation in East Antarctica has reached to level where it outweighs the losses due to climate change. But, a new study does not agree with these findings.

According to the latest study, the NASA research work is completely opposite to over a decade-long other scientific measurements even earlier carried out NASA studies. The NASA study has claimed that in East Antarctica there is enough ice, which can balance the losses from Antarctica' thinnest glaciers.

Last week's study has challenged that Antarctica is losing ice. Other researchers said that the study is against 13 years of satellite measurements of Antarctica's ice. Eric Rignot, principle scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, affirmed that authors of the NASA report do not have substantial data to prove their claims.

Jay Zwally, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, also the lead author of the challenged study, was of the view that the research results of his study are based on improved models, which have not been applied in earlier measurements.

Jay said that his model looks at the movement of the bedrock under Antarctica's ice. Zwally said about the old model, "didn't take into account the slow growth (in ice) at the center. So we estimated that that unaccounted-for growth is about a centimeter (0.39 inch) or two a year over 10,000 years. That's . meters on top of the other ice".

Zwally’s model focuses on the movement of the bedrock deep under Antarctica’s ice. Earth’s mantle rises when relieved of the burden of ice sheets and glaciers. The same phenomenon occurred in Antarctica, Zwally said, but it hasn’t been accurately included in the old models of bedrock movement. That, he said, may be behind the difference between his measurements and those of the rest of the scientific community.

Benjamin Smith, of the University of Washington’s applied physics lab, said he didn’t think there was inaccurate data in Zwally's study. The differences in conclusion with other studies, he said, were largely based on the interpretation of that data.

Smith said the issue may be laid to rest soon. There are plans underway, he said, to send teams to Antarctica to take measurements of the ice's altitude that way rather than using satellite data.

The ultimate purpose was to determine whether or not the current Amundsen instability could lead to the entire ice sheet collapsing into the sea. The simulations suggest that this is in fact the case.

The models show that 60 more years of meltage at the current rate—a very reasonable estimate—will push the WAIS past a critical point-of-no-return. Beyond this threshold, a complete, long-term disintegration is predicted to occur. Feldmann and Levermann worry that the WAIS has already become critically unstable, and that this region has already passed the threshold point.

"We now, for the first time, show that if you destabilise the region, then you get a chain reaction, and the entire WAIS is discharged into the ocean," said Anders Levermann, professor of climate dynamics at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

Dr Levermann was careful to say that the model still needed more observational data about the topography of the ice surface, and more information about the bedrock upon which the WAIS sits.