Larsen C is cracking now." Make that has cracked. "The Larsen A and B Ice Shelves have broken up. "The Antarctic Peninsula is a hot spot," it says. National Geographic's current issue contains a special report on Antarctica, a measured but still heart-stopping survey of the current science and the consequences of warming air and seas. That's a relief, right? The bigger picture is a lot more terrifying. If it were easier, we would all be pulling in the same direction and a man who thinks climate change is a hoax perpetrated by China would not have been elected president of the United States.Īccording to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the new iceberg – which some activists want to name Exxon Knew – won't raise sea levels because it was already floating, so the effect is similar to "ice cubes melting in a cup of water." And it's not uncommon for icebergs to be created this way in Antarctica. Yes, I'm joking about a very serious subject, but the point is that it's extremely hard to communicate effectively the threat posed by climate change. On a scale of Ingmar Bergman (dread, but no immediate threat) to Cloverfield (imminent destruction by rampaging monster), how worried should I be about this wayward iceberg containing twice the volume of Lake Erie?Īpparently, somewhere in the middle. All the comparisons of the iceberg's size were useful, but what I really wanted was a guide to the size of panic I should be feeling over the progress of climate change. Technically, the iceberg "calved" from the ice shelf, and though I'm no farm girl, I find it hard to believe that calves come that big. In Spain, it was the size of 10 Madrids (the website Quartz compiled a handy chart of the comparisons). The Taiwanese described it as one-sixth the size of Taiwan. As big as Prince Edward Island, according to a description in this publication. How big was the iceberg that split off from the Larsen C ice shelf in western Antarctica this week? Pretty damn big.
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