A number of floating ice shelves in Antarctica are at risk of disappearing entirely in the next 200 years, as global warming reduces their snow cover, a new study has warned. Their collapse would enhance the discharge of ice into the oceans and increase the rate at which sea-level rises, researchers said.

A rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could save a number of these ice shelves, researchers at Utrecht University and the British Antarctic Survey said.

Back in 1995 and 2002, two floating ice shelves in the north of the Antarctic Peninsula (Larsen A and B) suddenly collapsed – each event occurred in a matter of weeks.

“This was a spectacular event, especially when you imagine the size of these ice shelves, which are several hundreds of metres thick, and have been in place for over 10,000 years,” Dr Peter Kuipers Munneke, the paper’s lead author, said.

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