Ice shelf

An ice shelf is a thick platform of glacial ice that floats on the ocean while remaining attached to a coastline. It forms where land ice flows into the sea and can extend for hundreds of kilometers.

Ice-sheet dynamics: The movement and changing shape of large bodies of ice resting on land. Land ice flows toward the coast and feeds the shelf.
Antarctic ice sheet: The vast mass of land-based ice covering most of Antarctica. Its coastal glaciers supply many of the world's largest ice shelves.
Sea ice: Frozen seawater that forms and floats on the ocean surface. Unlike an ice shelf, it forms directly from seawater rather than flowing from land.
Sea-level rise: An increase in the average level of the world's oceans over time. Shelf loss contributes little directly, but can speed land-ice discharge into the sea.
Grounding line: The boundary where grounded ice loses contact with bedrock and begins to float. This shifting boundary marks where an ice shelf begins.
Thwaites Glacier: A large, fast-moving glacier in West Antarctica that drains into the Amundsen Sea. Its floating ice tongue and weakening shelf system affect inland ice flow.
Glacier: A persistent body of land ice that flows under its own weight. A glacier is grounded ice; an ice shelf is its floating continuation.
Ice-albedo feedback: A climate feedback in which changes in ice cover alter reflected sunlight and surface warming. Shelf breakup exposes darker ocean, changing local heat absorption.
Iceberg calving: The breaking away of icebergs from the edge of a glacier or ice shelf. Calving releases icebergs from the shelf's seaward edge.
Pine Island Glacier: A rapidly changing glacier in West Antarctica that flows into Pine Island Bay. Its floating ice shelf loses mass rapidly through basal melting.

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