Professor Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University in Wales, who led the study while working as a Fulbright Scholar in the United States, said the findings refute the common belief that the collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica was a sudden response to climate change.

"Ice shelf collapse is not as simple as we first thought," said Glasser, who explained climate is just one factor and other atmospheric, oceanic and glaciological factors are involved. He said observations by glaciologists and numerical modeling by other scientists showed the ice shelf had been in distress for decades.

The collapse of ice shelves indirectly contribute to a rise in sea level. Since ice shelves float on the ocean, they already displace the same volume of water, he said.

"But when the ice shelves collapse, the glaciers that feed them speed up and get thinner, so they supply more ice to the oceans," he said.

The study that included Ted Scambos of University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center appears in the Journal of Glaciology.

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