Ice shelves are sensitive elements of the climate system. Sandwiched between atmosphere and ocean, they are vulnerable to changes in either. The recent disintegration of ice shelves such as Larsen B and Wilkins on the Antarctic Peninsula and current thinning of the ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctic provide evidence of the rapidity with which they can respond. Losses of floating ice appear to be intimately linked with acceleration and thinning of the inland ice sheet, with immediate consequences for global sea level. Studies of ice shelves addressing their dynamics and structure and their interactions with atmosphere and ocean are the key to improving our understanding of their response to climate forcing and of their buttressing role for ice streams. The main themes of this session are the dynamics of ice shelves and their interaction with the ocean, atmosphere and their tributary ice streams. The session includes studies on related processes such as calving, ice fracture, rifting and mass balance, as well as theoretical descriptions of mechanical and thermodynamic processes. We seek contributions from numerical modelling of ice shelves and their oceanic and atmospheric environments, observational studies, including glaciological and oceanographic field measurements, as well as remote sensing and laboratory studies.