We investigate experimentally the effect of stratification on a vertical ice face dissolving into cold salty water. We measure the interface temperature, ablation velocity and turbulent plume velocity over a range of salinity gradients and compare our measurements with results of similar experiments without a salinity gradient (Kerr & McConnochie, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 765, 2015, pp. 211–228; McConnochie & Kerr, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 787, 2016, pp. 237–253). We observe that stratification acts to reduce the ablation velocity, interface temperature, plume velocity and plume acceleration. We define a stratification parameter, . Finally, we calculate values for the stratification parameter at a number of ice shelves and conclude that ocean stratification will have a significant effect on the dissolution of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.