Melting and cracking – is Antarctica falling apart?

Although fracturing and surface melting on the Larsen C ice shelf might sound like indicators of climate change, these processes are natural

Antarctica boasts a great many superlatives: it is the driest continent, the coldest, the remotest, the windiest and the highest on average. Right now, during midwinter, it is also the darkest. As a rift on the continent's Larsen C ice shelf lengthens and gets closer to the ice front, we are anticipating the detachment of a large tabular iceberg within the next few weeks.

This comes after observations of a waterfall on another ice shelf last summer, reports of extensive surface melting on several ice shelves and, in a report last week, indications of a widespread surface-melting event, which included rainfall as far as 82 south, during the 2015-16 El Nino. Are glaciologists shocked by any of this? Is Antarctica going to melt away? Is Larsen C about to collapse?