Global warming is affecting a number of things in the world. One of the main results is the increasing sea levels. A new study has unveiled that the last remaining section of one of Antarctica’s ice shelves is melting. There are high chances of its melting in the next few years.

The researchers carried out a study on Larsen B Ice Shelf. This ice shelf has existed for at least 10,000 years, but in 2002 it partially collapsed. Now, the remaining ice cover measures around 625 square miles. Larsen B is present in the Antarctic Peninsula, which is facing the impact of climate change.

The researchers affirmed that many ice shelves are present in Antarctica and all of them are massive. But the largest is around the size of France. Study’s co-author Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said, “This study of the Antarctic Peninsula glaciers provides insights about how ice shelves farther south, which hold much more land ice, will react to a warming climate”.

Study’s lead researcher Ala Khazendar said their findings are based on airborne surveys and radar data. On the basis of the data, they came to know that a widening rift in Larsen B will break the ice shelve completely around 2020.

Once the breaking act takes place then glaciers present behind the ice shelf will slip from the land into the ocean at a faster rate and contribute to increasing sea levels. The researchers also came to know that two main tributaries of the ice shelf, Leppard and Flask, have been thinning. They have already thinned between 65 and 72 feet in past few years.