Antarctic ice sheet
Melting of floating ice shelves (ice that originated on the land) does not in itself contribute much to sea-level rise, since the ice displaces only its own mass of water. However, ice sheets work as a stabilizer of the land ice, and are vulnerable to warming water. Recent decades have witnessed several dramatic collapses of large ice shelves around the coast of Antarctica, especially along the Antarctic Peninsula. This loss of ice shelf "buttressing" has been identified as the major cause of ice loss on the West Antarctic ice sheet, but has also been observed around the East Antarctic ice sheet.