A 160-square-mile chunk of ice — that’s seven times the size of Manhattan — has collapsed off of the Wilkins ice shelf in Antarctica. The entire ice shelf, which is approximately the size of Connecticut, is “hanging by a thread,” says climate scientist David Vaughan: “We’ll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be.” Scientists are not concerned that the ice breakage will have an immediate effect on sea-level rise, but, says researcher Sarah Das, such collapses are “more indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system.” Which is so not what we need right now.
