Earlier this week, it was unveiled that Antarctic peninsula’s ice shelf, Larsen C, is melting from top and underneath. Researchers from British Antarctic Survey and several other research centers have raised concerns by affirming that its reducing thickness could pose a risk to its stability.

Now, another bad news has unveiled that the remnants of the Larsen B ice shelf, which majorly had collapsed back in 2002, can soon disappear. A new study by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California at Irvine said the Larsen B is melting at faster pace.

The rate at which it is melting, it can completely collapse before the end of the decade. “What might happen is that for a few years, we will have the detachment of big icebergs from this remaining ice shelf, and then at one point, one very warm summer, when you have lots of melting of the surface”, affirmed study’s lead researcher Ala Khazendar from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The researchers carried out measurement from planes and satellites. After analyzing the measurement, the researchers said that cracks in the shelf are widening. There are land-based glaciers behind the ice-shelf, which have also started to move faster towards the sea. To cite an example, both the Leppard and Flask glaciers are moving faster.

The loss of ice shelves does not directly impact sea level as these shelves are already present in the water. But when they collapse, they increase the speed of seaward flow of glaciers that are present behind them. Therefore, when the ice leaves land and gets immersed in water, it is then the sea level rises.

The US Geological Survey estimates that the glaciers of the Antarctic peninsula can contribute up to 1.5 feet of global sea-level rise.