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The Ross Ice Shelf is a massive floating sheet of ice attached to Antarctica that is roughly the size of Spain. Scientists monitor it closely because changes to this ice shelf—such as cracks or melting—can affect sea levels and provide important information about climate change in Antarctica.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
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The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica (as of 2013, an area of roughly 500,809 km (193,363 mi) and about 800 km (500 mi) across: about the size of France). It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than 600 km (370 mi) long, and between 15 and 50 m (50 and 160 ft) high above the water surface. Ninety percent of the floating ice, however, is below the water surface.
Most of the Ross Ice Shelf is in the Ross Dependency claimed by New Zealand. It floats in, and covers, a large southern portion of the Ross Sea and the entire Roosevelt Island located in the east of the Ross Sea.