BOO!
There is land under the ice and about 2% of Antarctica is not covered by ice. Much of the land is below sea level. If you magicly get rid of the ice, Antarctica would be much smaller. But if that happened, I doubt that scientists would say “Dang! Somehow Antarctica has disappeared and we need a name for the remaining land that was under it.” So I would say that “Antarctica” is a land mass that is covered in a lot of ice.
I think that the reason that it is below sea level is that the ice has pushed it down. The ice is over a mile thick in places. But I don’t think it’d spring back up to it’s pre-ice cap days.
I think Greenland is similar, having areas pushed below sea level by the ice.
AWB is correct. Back in the day, when Antarctica occupied more temperate latitudes, it was ice-free and above sea level. The weight of the ice on it now has pressed it down.
If the two major ice sheets (East and West) melted, it would begin to rise, but very very slowly.
I’ve heard that Canada is still much lower than it “should” be, because it was pressed down by the Laurentide Glacier during the last great Ice Age, and is still rebounding from that.
Interestingly enough, dippy, it takes you hours and hours to type all these posts, and it only takes me two mouse clicks to make them go away.
I can do this all winter. Care to try to keep up?