A crack in the world

A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf Is 8 Miles From Creating an Iceberg the Size of Delaware

Once the shelf is gone, there is no cork holding back the groundwater of the glaciers that reside on land. Comforting thought, right?

According to Dr. Rignot, the collapse of Larsen C would add only a tiny amount of water to the global sea level. Of greater concern to scientists is how the collapse of ice shelves can affect the glaciers that flow behind them, because the melting of those glaciers can cause much greater increases in sea level. Scientists see the impending Larsen C collapse as a warning that far larger amounts of ice in West Antarctica could be vulnerable.

“I think of the Larsen C as a natural laboratory that almost lets us do an experiment on an ice shelf,” said Thomas P. Wagner, who runs NASA’s effort to study the polar regions. “When it breaks, what the heck happens next?"

Houston, we have a problem.