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Measuring some 3,250 square kilometres in area and 220 metres thick, the Larsen B iceshelf broke away from the eastern Antarctic Peninsula in 2002, eventually disintegrating into giant icebergs.

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Over the past half century, temperatures in the peninsula have risen by around two degrees Celsius.

In recent years, the peninsula has lost ice shelves totalling more than 12,500 square kilometres, equivalent to four times the area of Luxembourg.

Of the 244 glaciers that drain inland ice and feed these shelves, 87 per cent have fallen back since the mid-1950s, a British study published in April says.

Global warming, also called the greenhouse effect, is caused by carbon gases mostly discharged by burning oil, gas and coal, that trap the sun's heat.

But Earth's climate also goes through natural oscillations of warming and cooling, resulting in Ice Ages and the milder interglacial periods in between.

The new study does not say that man-made global warming was responsible for the Larsen B's demise.

However, it refers to a steep rise in the temperatures over the past several decades, a phenomenon that climatologists concur was unleashed by fossil fuels.