How to Use ice shelf in a Sentence

ice shelf

noun
Definition of ice shelfnext
  • Meanwhile, ocean water seeps beneath the ice shelf and washes up against the base of the glacier.
    — Chelsea Harvey, Scientific American, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Scientists also hope to learn whether the ice shelf has melted in the past due to other climate shifts.
    — Sophie Weiner, Popular Mechanics, 23 Feb. 2018
  • Recently, the continent has seen a reduction in the extent of floating ice shelves.
    — Jen Christensen, CNN, 13 June 2018
  • And then the really tough place to make measurements is underneath the floating ice shelf, underneath this thick plate of ice.
    — Andrea Thompson, Scientific American, 14 May 2018
  • Each of the other seven projects have similarly complex mandates, with many of them venturing far out onto the ice shelf.
    — Eric Betz, Discover Magazine, 30 Apr. 2018
  • Like other Antarctic glaciers Thwaites flows toward the sea—and once there its ice begins to float, forming what is called an ice shelf.
    — Andrea Thompson, Scientific American, 14 May 2018
  • At the grounding line, the ice detaches from the bedrock and juts out into the water as a kind of floating ledge, or ice shelf, which helps to stabilize the glacier and hold back the flow of ice behind it.
    — Chelsea Harvey, Scientific American, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Warmer oceans are leading to everything from drastic shifts in the Antarctic food chain to the destabilization of ice shelves, which are melting at unprecedented speed.
    — Indre Rockefeller, Vogue, 18 Mar. 2018
  • The free-swimming submersibles will be equipped with cameras and sensors for temperature and salinity along with sonar capable of looking upward at the bottom of the ice shelf as well as downward at the seafloor.
    — NBC News, 11 Apr. 2018
  • The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf in the world.
    — Nala Rogers, Discover Magazine, 14 Jan. 2019
  • The Larsen C is the next ice shelf in line and by far the largest of the three.
    — Sarah Gibbens, Environment, 28 Dec. 2020
  • The key to the future of Thwaites is the ice shelf and its tongue.
    — Arkansas Online, 4 Feb. 2022
  • The faster movement of ice causes the ice shelf to stretch and crack.
    — Andrew Freedman, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Feb. 2020
  • Think of the floating ice shelf as a dam that holds back the ice sheet on land.
    — WIRED, 27 Oct. 2023
  • The ice shelf has now been reduced in area by about 43%.
    — Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 8 Aug. 2020
  • There’s no way to know what an iceberg of this size will do to the ice shelf.
    — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 26 Feb. 2019
  • The study is unlikely to be the last word on the fate of the West Antarctic ice shelves.
    — Raymond Zhong, New York Times, 23 Oct. 2023
  • So what are DJs blasting 10 miles across the ice shelf?
    — Lukas Harnisch, SPIN, 20 Jan. 2022
  • The ice shelf is one of the restraining forces holding the ice sheet back.
    — Ted Scambos, The Conversation, 7 June 2022
  • Part of what holds it in place is an ice shelf that juts out onto the surface of the ocean.
    — Laura Paddison, CNN, 15 Feb. 2023
  • The bit of a glacier that’s resting on land is known as an ice sheet, and the bit floating on the ocean is the ice shelf.
    — Matt Simon, Wired, 16 Feb. 2022
  • The ice shelf on the upwind side of the hole is the perfect spot to set a couple of the duck decoys as resters.
    — Phil Bourjaily, Field & Stream, 3 Dec. 2019
  • Much of that loss is because warmer ocean water has caused the ice shelves to melt.
    — Li Cohen, CBS News, 7 Feb. 2020
  • As this grounding line recedes, bits of the ice shelf break off.
    — The Economist, 17 Aug. 2019
  • Now climate change has turned the ice shelf into a threat — to Pettit’s field work, and to the world.
    — Sarah Kaplan, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Dec. 2021
  • Now climate change has turned the ice shelf into a threat - to Pettit’s field work, and to the world.
    — Sarah Kaplan, Anchorage Daily News, 14 Dec. 2021
  • And that could be bad news for the glacial ice sheet’s connection to the floating ice shelf.
    — WIRED, 8 Nov. 2022
  • This week a giant city-sized iceberg split off an ice shelf in what part of the world?
    — CNN, 26 Jan. 2023
  • Some sections build up ice shelves, but the creek is still flowing and the fish are still biting.
    — Brittany Anas, The Denver Post, 12 Mar. 2024
  • These now warmer waters can eat away at the giant, buttressing ice shelves from below.
    — Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 2 Mar. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ice shelf.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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