A thin strip of ice, just 6 kilometres wide, is all that is holding back the collapse of the Wilkins ice shelf in Antarctica, according to glaciologists.

Although researchers agree the disintegration of the Wilkins ice shelf will not contribute to rising sea levels, they say it may help them understand what triggers such events in order to predict when they are likely to happen again.

They now know that waves generated by storms over the open ocean are just as important as air and water temperature. Normally a slurry of sea ice floating in front of the ice shelf would act as a wave breaker, but this year warm temperatures melted away much of the sea ice.