What was done
The authors measured positions of ice shelf margins along the Queen Maud Land coast of Antarctica "from 1963 satellite reconnaissance photography and 1997 RADARSAT synthetic aperture radar image data for comparison with coastlines inferred by other researchers who used Landsat data from the mid-1970s."

What was learned
Over the 34-year period from 1963 to 1997, the ice shelves studied lost approximately 6.8% of their total area.  However, most of the areal reduction occurred over the 12-year period from 1963 to 1975.  Over the following 22-year period stretching from 1975 to 1997, the authors note that "ice margin positions have stabilized or even readvanced."

What it means
Things at the bottom of the world are not nearly as bad as climate alarmists are wont to claim each time a new iceberg breaks loose from Antarctica, as icebergs have done repeatedly ever since the end of the last great ice age.  In fact, the authors say that "on the basis of the measured mean annual temperatures at coastal stations, extrapolated measured temperature trends, and the taking of a mean annual temperature of -5°C as a stability criterion, we predict that these ice shelves will remain stable for several hundred years."

Nothing too alarming here!