How to Use ice shelf in a Sentence

ice shelf

noun
Definition of ice shelfnext
  • 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 calving reduced the size of the ice shelf by some 12%.
    — Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 13 Feb. 2018
  • 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, Anchorage Daily News, 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, BostonGlobe.com, 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
  • One by one, the ice shelves on the east side of the peninsula began to collapse.
    — National Geographic, 15 Nov. 2016
  • This week a giant city-sized iceberg split off an ice shelf in what part of the world?
    — CNN, 26 Jan. 2023
  • The holes were roughly 200 meters deep in the Antarctic ice shelf.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 23 Dec. 2021
  • That could take hundreds of years, but the ice shelf could fall apart much sooner.
    — Taylor Wilson, USA TODAY, 17 Feb. 2023
  • Think of an ice shelf as a cork that’s keeping the rest of the glacier, that ice sheet, from sliding into the ocean.
    — Matt Simon, Wired, 16 Feb. 2022
  • The ice shelf at the end of the glacier buttresses the river of ice, slowing its flow into the ocean.
    — Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 15 Nov. 2013
  • Scientists had been seeing the ice shelf shrink a bit since the 1970s, Neff said.
    — Seth Borenstein, chicagotribune.com, 25 Mar. 2022
  • Meanwhile, ocean water seeps beneath the ice shelf and washes up against the base of the glacier.
    — Chelsea Harvey, Scientific American, 4 Apr. 2018
  • This erosion lets the ice flow faster, pushing against the floating ice shelf.
    — Ted Scambos, The Conversation, 7 June 2022
  • 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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