From the Community: A crack found in the Antarctic glacier

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18 mile crack seen by NASA in Antarctic glacier
Submitted by JanforGore

A new satellite image from NASA reveals a pencil-thin line across the Pine Island Glacier. In the next few months, scientists expect the 18 miles long crack to grow and create an iceberg about 350 square miles in area.

"Pine Island Glacier is losing ice very quickly, about six meters per year," said Michael Studinger of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, which sent an expedition called Operation IceBridge to Antarctica in October in an old DC-8 jetliner, modified for scientific operations. It spotted the break in the ice. Earth-observing satellites have been watching it since.

"These things happen on a semi-regular basis in both the Arctic and Antarctic, but it's still a fairly large event," said John Sonntag, Instrument Team Lead for Operation IceBridge, in video recorded on the plane. "So we wanted to make sure we captured as much of that process as we could.

The community shares its thoughts on the change to our world's climate:

kennymotown: "May I suggest a whole lot of super glue! All kidding aside, this is yet another warning from mother nature. When will we ever get our act together on global warming, it's at the point of pure insanity. But yet another 50 million idiots will vote Republican this time around AGAIN! And another 30 or 40 million will not vote. America is number one in polluting the Earth with China gaining ground, Capitalism will eventually kill us all."

MrMetalloidMan: "And when we're up to our necks in antarctic water, the Republicans will blame the Democrats for not doing anything."

haberzet: "The whole climate change denying is just an expression of pure fear among wide parts of society. Fear to have to change. Fear that life will not be the same anymore and fear of what the new condition we will live under will bring. The easiest way of coping with that fear, is to deny that it is actually happening. In the end the main problem, when it comes to climate change debates, is the low level of education. Too many people are not capable of understanding simple facts."

chew_chew: "How long must Mother Nature continue to scream for help until someone in a position to affect necessary changes, hears the cries and begins with the changes, already."

danitassin: "The best thing we can do is encourage education. We need teach our children how live with the earth not in constant struggle with it. I always think of the most cliche saying ever, but it's true. Knowledge is Power."

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