Ice shelf

Ice shelves are ubiquitous features of marine-terminating ice sheets. They form where the ice sheet margins are thin enough to float free of the seabed. Their flow is characterized by lateral spreading, and critically controlled by the degree of lateral confinement. They interact both with the atmosphere and, particularly strongly, with the ocean, which through melting the ice shelf base and transporting icebergs away exerts the primary controls on the thickness and extent of the ice shelves. Changes in the ice shelves have implications for global sea level, because of the control exerted by the ice shelves on the flow of the grounded ice sheet, and for the global ocean circulation, because of the role played by ISW in the formation of AABW.