What Are The Implications Of Losing Antarctica’s Ice Shelves
Ice shelves are thick plates of ice that float on the ocean around much of Antarctica. Snow, glaciers and ice floes feed these large plates in the colder months. In warmer periods, surface melting creates standing water that leaks into cracks and speeds the breaking off (calving) of icebergs, decreasing the continent’s mass in a natural cycle as old as Antarctica itself.

