This is another sign of the times, an analysis, and a commentary.
Antarctica sheds huge iceberg.
A chunk of floating ice, roughly the size of Delaware, has broken away from the Antarctic peninsula.
Producing one of the largest icebergs ever recorded and providing a glimpse of how the Antarctic ice sea might ultimately start to fall apart.
A crack more than 120 miles long had developed over several years in a floating ice shelf called Larson Sea.
Scientists carefully tracked it in recent months and images shot by a NASA satellite showed that a 2,200 square mile chunk had finally broken loose.
There is no scientific consensus yet over whether global warming is to blame.
But the event fundamentally changes the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula.
According to Project Midas, a research team at a university in Wales that has been watching the rift since 2014.
The remaining shelf will be at its smallest ever known size, said a lead researcher for Project Midas.
This is a big change, maps will need to be redrawn.
Larson Sea, like two smaller ice shells that collapsed before it, was holding back relatively little land ice.
And it is not expected to contribute much to the rise of the sea.
But in other parts of Antarctica, similar shells are holding back enormous amounts of ice.
And scientists fear that their future collapse could dump enough ice into the ocean to raise the sea level.
By many feet, how fast this could happen is unclear.
In the late 20th century, the Antarctic Peninsula, which jets out from the main body of Antarctica and points toward South America, was one of the fastest warming places in the world.
That warming had slowed or perhaps reversed slightly in the 21st century.
But scientists believe the ice is still catching up to the higher temperatures.
Some climate scientists believe the warming in the region was at least in part a consequence of human caused climate change.
While others have disputed that, seeing a large role for natural variability and noting that icebergs have been breaking away from ice shells for many millions of years.
But the two camps agree that the breakup of ice shells in the Peninsula region may be a preview of what is in store for the main part of Antarctica.
As the world continues heating up as a result of human activity.
In other words, watch the ice melt.
While it might not be caused by global warming, it's at least a natural laboratory to study how breakups will occur at other ice shells to improve the theoretical basis for our projections of future sea level rise.
Said Thomas P. Wagner, who leads NASA's efforts to study the polar regions.
In frigid regions, ice shells formed as long rivers of ice called glaciers flow from land into the sea.
The result is a bit like a clog in a drain pipe, slowing the flow of the glaciers feeding them.
When an ice shell collapses, the glaciers behind it can accelerate as though the drain pipe had suddenly cleared.
We're going to be watching very carefully for signs that the rest of the shell is becoming unstable.
A university scientist and member of the Project Midas team said in a statement,
At the remaining part of Larsen Sea, the edge is now much closer to a line that scientists call the compressive arch, which is critical for structural support.
If the front retreats past that line, the northernmost part of the shell could collapse, possibly within months.
At that point in time, the glaciers will react. Said a climate scientist at the University of California, who has done extensive research on polar ice.
If the ice shell breaks apart, it will remove a buttressing force on the glaciers that flow into it.
The glaciers will feel less resistance to flow, effectively removing a cork in front of them.
The stability of the whole ice shelf is threatened.
You have these two anchors on the side of Larsen Sea that play a critical role in holding the ice shelf where it is.
If the shelf is getting thinner, it will be more breakable and it will lose contact with the ice rises.
Ice rises are islands that are overridden by the ice shell, allowing them to shoulder more of the weight of the shell.
Scientists have yet to determine the extent of thinning around the Bowden and Gibbs ice rises.
Noting that the Bowden ice rise was more vulnerable.
We're not even sure how it's hanging on there, but if you take away Bowden, the whole shelf will fill it.
The collapse of the Antarctic Peninsula ice shells can be interpreted as fulfilling a prophecy made in 1978
by a renowned geologist named John H. Mercer of Ohio State University.
In a classic paper, Dr. Mercer warned that the western part of Antarctica was so vulnerable
to human-induced climate warming as to pose a threat of disaster from rising seas.
He said that humanity would know the calamity had begun when ice shelves started breaking up along the peninsula,
with the breakups moving progressively southward.
The Larsen A ice shelf broke up over several years starting in 1995.
The Larsen B underwent a drastic collapse in 2002 and now scientists fear the calving of the giant iceberg
could be the first stage in the breakup of Larsen C.
As climate warming progresses further south, it will affect larger and larger ice shells,
holding back bigger and bigger glaciers so that their collapse will contribute more to sea level rise.
Again, this too is another sign of the end of times as we know them,
transition days which is a time of extraordinary happenings, changes and events
because it's about what kind of world are we leaving to the future generations
and that should be a very important question to ask.
Revelation 16
Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels,
Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.
So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth,
and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.
The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a dead man,
and every living thing died that was in the sea.
The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became as blood.
And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say,
Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments,
for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you are giving them blood to drink.
It is what they deserve.
And I heard the altar saying, Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and just are your judgments.
The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire.
They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God,
who had power over these plagues.
They did not repent and give him glory.
The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast,
and its kingdom or nation was plunged into darkness.
People nod their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores.
They did not repent of their deeds.
The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, Euphrates, and its water was dried up
to prepare the wave for the kings and leaders from the east.
And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon, now the mouth of the beast,
now the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs,
for they are demonic spirits performing signs
who go abroad to the kings and leaders of the whole world
to assemble them for battle on the great day of God, the Almighty.
Behold, I am coming like a thief.
Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on,
that he may not go about naked, and be seen exposed.
And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air,
and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying,
It is done.
And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, fields of thunder,
and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth.
So great was that earthquake.
The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.
And God remembered Babylon the Great to make her drain the cup of the wine
of the fury of his wrath.
And every island or nation fled away, and no mountains were to be found.
And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each,
fell from heaven on people, and they cursed God for the plague of the hail,
because the plague was so great.
Yes, it's time for prophecy to be fulfilled,
and all these are more signs.
This is also what I see, think, feel, and discern.
