The leading cause of ice melt in the polar regions is attributed to global warming caused by human activities.
In particular, the emissions of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide and methane has led to a warming of the planet.
Scientists who study how this will impact the Antarctic ice sheet, use mean temperatures in their projections.
But according to the Penn State researchers, this smoothes out the spikes and dips caused by the internal fluctuations and creates a biased view.
Profess Forest said: “If we include variability in the simulations, we are going to have more warm days and more sunshine, and therefore when the daily temperature gets above a certain threshold it will melt the ice.