Tough to ignore climate change facts when they’re lapping at your ankles

There is something going on in Antarctica. It’s been going on for a long time – but even so, I think it can still be called breaking news.

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“And what’s going on is the huge crack that has opened up in one of the floating ice shelves that cling to the coast here,” Dr. Ken Taylor explained.

In Antarctica, it’s the middle of the summer and Dr. Taylor is busy taking core samples from the ice to study the hidden evidence of climate change – but as CBS’s Mark Phillips found out on his tour of the Larsen Ice Shelf, it’s not so hidden anymore.

“There’s a large berg about to break off of the Larsen Ice Shelf,” Taylor explained.

“You say ‘large berg’ — it’s the size of Delaware?” Phillips asked.

“The size of Delaware, yes, it’s very large. And the fracture that is breaking off that is expanding quite a bit lately … jumps about a mile every couple week or so,” Taylor said.

“And there are several spots around Antarctica that are believed to be in this irreversible situation, where the ice on the ground is going to flow into the sea and there’s nothing we can do to stop it at this point.”

And to convince the rest of us that this is real, scientists have been using time-lapse photography — one snapshot per hour — to track the break-up of the ice.

And not only can you see what’s been going on, you can also sniff what has been going on. Scientists pull up core samples which include air bubbles – trapped deep in the ice for thousands of years.

“If you break this open and smell that air, you’re smelling ancient air,” Taylor said. “It’s really good air, it’s like the air before humans messed up the atmosphere.”

Actually, it doesn’t smell like anything. That is what’s notable about ancient air.

“… that air that contained a fraction of the warming greenhouse gasses the human race is now pumping into the atmosphere,” Phillips reports.

Or you could just decide it’s all part of the hoax. But it’s beginning to look like we’ll find out who’s right sooner rather than later.

“More Antarctic ice flowing into the sea would increase the threat to low-lying coastal areas around the world, including in the United States,” Phillips reports.

Sounds scary.

Of course, these days, how can you tell what a fact really is? Until it starts lapping at your ankles.

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