1.   Retreating ice shelves could be expected as a result of global warming, but are not in themselves evidence of it.

2.   Studies are also showing that the edges of the ice shelves are breaking up, to form icebergs, far faster than would be expected.

3.   And the surprising warmth threatens the integrity of other ice shelves all around the huge continent, they said.

4.   Antarctic blizzards are triggered when pockets of cold air roll off the polar plateau and rush across the ice shelf.

5.   As glaciers flow into the water, the ice shelves grow until some point when a large iceberg breaks off, and then the process repeats.

6.   At around the same time a large chuck of the ice shelf just north of the berg disintegrated into much smaller pieces.

7.   Because the ice shelf was already floating, its breakup will not cause global sea levels to rise.

8.   A large enough warming could even melt the Filcher-Ronne and Ross ice shelves closer to the South Pole, each as big as Spain.

9.   A controlled crash on the ice shelf seemed least disastrous, if they could make it that far.

10.   A melting ice shelf is not necessarily a sign of human-induced global warming.