Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Some named Antarctic iceshelves. Ice shelf extending approximately 6 miles into the Antarctic Sound from Joinville Island. An ice shelf is "a floating slab of ice originating from land of considerable thickness extending from the coast (usually of great horizontal extent with a very gently sloping surface), resulting from the flow of ice sheets, initially formed by the accumulation of snow ...
Shelf ice is a floating mat of ice, but unlike a pond or a small lake that freezes over, the shelf is not a uniform sheet of ice. Created by the wind and waves, the shelf ice is a jumble of ice chunks, pushed onto each other. It is as if you took a pile of rubble and pushed up against a wall.
An ice stream is a region of fast-moving ice within an ice sheet. It is a type of glacier , a body of ice that moves under its own weight. [ 2 ] They can move upwards of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) a year, and can be up to 50 kilometres (31 mi) in width, and hundreds of kilometers in length. [ 3 ]
Researchers say their findings ‘highlight the complexity and often-overlooked importance of sea ice’ to the health of ice shelves.
The Ross Ice Shelf is the main outlet for several major glaciers draining the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains the equivalent of 5 m of sea level rise in its above-sea-level ice." The report added that observations of "iceberg calving" on the Ross Ice Shelf are, in their opinion, unrelated to its stability. [10]
An ice shelf in steady state calves at roughly the same rate as the influx of new ice, [8] [9] and calving events may occur on sub-annual to decadal timescales to maintain an overall average mean position of the ice shelf front. When calving rates exceed the influx of new ice, ice front retreat occurs, and ice shelves may grow smaller and ...
Of the continent's 162 ice shelves, 68 show significant shrinking between 1997 and 2021, while 29 grew, 62 didn’t change and three lost mass but not in a way scientists can say shows a ...
The Antarctic continental shelf is involved in global climate regulation and temperature stability through the overturning of water masses, where heat is circulated throughout the ocean. When ice forms, it results in brine rejection, where salt is expelled and dense water forms along the continental shelf.