Analyze each of the following arguments in terms of “antecedents” and “phenomena” to show how they follow the pattern of the method of residues:

Satellite observations collected between 1992 and 2001 suggest that the upper surface of the Larsen C ice shelf, in Antarctica, dropped as much as 27 cm per year during that period. About a quarter of that shrinkage, or 7 cm, may have resulted from snow packing down into denser material called firn. Uncertainties about such factors as the height of the ocean tides, and the salinity of water beneath the ice shelf would account for no more than a small fraction of the remaining loss of height above water.

Therefore, concluded Andrew Shepherd, a glaciologist at the University of Cambridge in England, as much as 20 cm per year of the upper surface’s drop must stem from melting. Nine-tenths of any mass of floating ice lies below the water’s surface, suggesting that the Larsen C ice shelf is thinning by as much as 2 m each year. The likely cause of this thinning is relatively warm water beneath the shelf. Even a very small temperature increase in the water below an ice shelf can make a big difference in the melting rate of the overlying ice. Larsen C is stable, and isn’t shedding more icebergs than normal, Shepherd reported, but at its current rate of thinning, Larsen C could reach 200 m in thickness (the thickness at which other ice shelves have disintegrated) and therefore be susceptible to disintegration in 70 years—but if the waters in the region continue to warm, the demise of Larsen C could occur even sooner.
 —Reported in Science News, 1 November 2003