It's actually a vast 4 million-square-mile peninsula of an even more vast land mass
The 
area of Antarctica is approximately 5.4 million square miles (14... [DOC] [TLE] Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum | NASA [PAR] Oct 7, 2014 ... 22, when sea ice covered 7.76 million square miles (20.11 million ... One clue, 
Parkinson said, could be found around the Antarctic Peninsula  a finger of land 
stretching ... up to the surface around the landmass, could help grow more ice.