See Also: Larsen Ice Shelf(encyclopedia)
Larsen, Loren(medicine)
Larsen's syndrome(medicine)
Singling-Larsen-Johanssen syndrome(health)
shelf(medicine)
shelf(2)(dictionary)
shelf(1)(dictionary)
shelf(dictionary)
off-the-shelf(dictionary)
shelf(dictionary)

Larsen Ice Shelf (sh)




Ice shelf in the northwestern Weddell Sea, adjoining the eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.

It is named for Capt. Carl A. Larsen, who explored the ice front by boat in 1893. The shelf originally covered an area of 33,000 sq mi (86,000 sq km), excluding the numerous small islands within it, but, as air temperatures over the Antarctic Peninsula warmed slightly in the second half of the 20th century, the shelf shrank dramatically. By the early 21st century, it covered only 40 percent of its former area.