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What was expected to take 15 years - a certain part of the Antarctic ice shelf dropping off into the sea - is happening right now:

Satellite imagery from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder reveals that a 13,680 square kilometer (5,282 square mile) ice shelf has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica.

The Western Antarctica has experienced the fastest warming on the planet over the past 50 years, increasing by almost a degree Fahrenheit each decade! This portion of the ice shelf - called The Wilkens - has been there for about 1500 years, but is now, today as we speak, is dropping off into the ocean, sheared in a straight line:

Cheng-Chien Liu, of Taiwan's National Cheng-Kung University, said, "It looks as if something is slicing the ice shelf piece by piece on an incredible scale, kilometers long but only a few hundred meters in width." And British Antarctic Survey glaciologist, David Vaughn, remarked, "Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on West Antarctica yet to be threatened. This shelf is hanging by a thread."

The pictures speak a thousand words.

Finally, Ted Scambos from from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder first spotted the disintegration in March:

"We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years. But warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a break-up. The Wilkins disintegration won't raise sea level because it already floats in the ocean, and few glaciers flow into it. However, the collapse underscores that the Wilkins region has experienced an intense melt season. Regional sea ice has all but vanished, leaving the ice shelf exposed to the action of waves."

It's not the only portion collapsing, though:

The Wilkins is one of a string of ice shelves that have collapsed in the West Antarctic Peninsula in the past thirty years. The Larsen B became the most well-known of these, disappearing in just over thirty days in 2002. The Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Wordie, Muller, and the Jones Ice Shelf collapses also underscore the unprecedented warming in this region of Antarctica.

But of course, the Global Warming Skeptics out there will just ignore this event as business as usual.

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