page_title: Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf
hierarchical_section_title: Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica. Português: Vista da plataforma de gelo Riiser-Larsen na Antártica. Original caption — For millions of years, Antarctica, the frozen continent at the southern end of the planet, has been encased in a gigantic sheet of ice. Recently, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite has been taking sensitive measurements of the gravity for the entire Earth, including Antarctica. Recent analysis of GRACE data indicate that the Antarctic ice sheet might have lost enough mass to cause the worlds' oceans to rise about .05 inches, on the average, from between 2002 and 2005. Although this may not seem like much, the equivalent amount of water is about 40 trillion gallons, equivalent to the amount of water used by U.S. residents in three months. Uncertainties in the measurement make the mass loss uncertain by about 21 trillion gallons. The iceberg pictured above is a small part of the Antarctic ice sheet. The picture was taken on the Riiser-Larsen ice shelf in December 1995. Future research will likely focus on trying to better understand the data, take more data, predict future trends, and understand possible effects of these trends on the future climate of our entire home planet.
context_page_description: Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf is an ice shelf about 250 miles long on the coast of Queen Maud Land, extending from Cape Norvegia in the north to Lyddan Island and Stancomb-Wills Glacier in the south. Parts of the ice shelf were sighted by William Speirs Bruce in 1904, Ernest Shackleton in 1915, and Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen in 1930. Most of it was photographed from the air in 1951-52 by the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition and delineated from these photos. Additional delineation of the southern and landward margins of the feature was accomplished from air photos taken, by USN Operation Deep Freeze from 1967 to 1969. The feature was named by Norway for Capt. Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, who explored the area in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
context_section_description: Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf is an ice shelf about 250 miles (400 km) long on the coast of Queen Maud Land, extending from Cape Norvegia in the north to Lyddan Island and Stancomb-Wills Glacier in the south. Parts of the ice shelf were sighted by William Speirs Bruce in 1904, Ernest Shackleton in 1915, and Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen in 1930. Most of it was photographed from the air in 1951-52 by the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition (NBSAE) and delineated from these photos. Additional delineation of the southern and landward margins of the feature was accomplished from air photos taken, by USN Operation Deep Freeze from 1967 to 1969. The feature was named by Norway for Capt. Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, who explored the area in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
caption: View of the Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica
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