As warm ocean water erodes the bottom of the ice shelf, the grounding line retreats inland. (discovermagazine.com)
The findings, published Monday in Nature Geoscience, reveal that the 1997 - 98 El Niño led to a substantial loss of mass from the bottom of the ice shelves in West Antarctica's Amundsen sea sector, even as the shelves appeared to grow about ten inches taller from additional snowfall. (earther.com)
«As in addition to basal melting [melting at the bottom of the ice shelf], surface melting is an important contributor to thinning rates, particularly during the summer months.» (earther.com)