As a consequence of the observed warming, vast areas of the ice shelves are rapidly disintegrating.
Ice shelves are the large floating masses of ice surrounding the continent's grounded ice sheets.
Calving icebergs from these shelves ordinarily represent the major source of ice discharge from the continent, yet recent changes to the ice sheets have been unexpectedly dramatic. In 1986, more than 11,000 square kilometres of the Larsen Ice Shelf and 11,500 square kilometres of the Filchner Ice Shelf broke off into the Weddell Sea. At the same time, about 1,600 square kilometres of the Thwaites iceberg Tongue broke away. In 1991 BAS published satellite images of the rapid disintegration of the Wordie Ice Shelf, and suggested that recent warm temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula region might be to blame. More than 1,300 square kilometres of the Wordie Ice Shelf have disappeared since 1966.