Charcot island and Latady Island are key pinning points for the ice shelf on its west facing front. As you can imagine a large floating shelf of ice is not as stable without such bedrock pinning points either on the lateral margin or beneath the ice sheet. As the ice shelf thins do to melting, its contact with the pinning points weakens, this enables calving, which further weakens the connection at the pinning points. This ice shelf is 6 degrees south of the Larsen B Ice Shelf and much more in line with the latitude of other large ice shelves of the main Antatrctic Ice Sheet, it is also quite close to Pine Island and Thwaites glacier which have also experienced greater retreat, and faster flow of late. The demise of the ice sheet was predicted long ago by the British Antarctic Survey because of its tenusous connection with the pinning points. The open water black right to the ice shelf front is not a good sign for the iceshelf either. I would suggest that one of the two original posts with kml files be updated to include a path of the ice front for both moments in time.