Satellite imagery showing the recent “complete collapse” of the Conger Ice Shelf in East Antarctica sparked fresh alarm over the climate emergency on Friday.
“While humans are killing humans, and governments are spending on weaponry as if there is no tomorrow, the environment is collapsing—so that there will be no tomorrow,” said former Greek finance minister and Progressive International co-founder Yanis Varoufakis.
The collapse, as The Guardian and CNET reported Thursday, occurred around March 15.
During that week, an unprecedented heat wave hit the region, with parts of East Antarctica seeing temperatures 40 degrees Celsius above normal. Scientists attributed the “freakish” warming to an atmospheric river.
The outlets pointed to a tweet with satellite imagery shared by Catherine Walker, an Earth and planetary scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and NASA.