Note that only a bit of the ice shelf has failed, not the whole Connecticut sized chunk. That might happen in the next few days.

Such events have always happened, since ice gradually flows through these systems, but the breakup of such huge chunks is a newly discovered event, and doesn't appear in the first twenty years of the satellite record. So yes, it probably is a symptom of the significant warming in that area, and it probably is directly related to global warming. I'd have to turn in my union card before sayin "definitely", you understand. Proof in these matters is hard to come by. I'm willing to say categorically that "you ain't seen nothin' yet".

As the video says, this was already floating ice so doesn't contribute to sea level rise, but weakening ice shelves can lead to failing glaciers (pronounced glassiers in the UK, apparently), and those can start to sink our coastlines.

Michael, Damon,
If all or most of the water that is trapped as ice on land were to return to the oceans would the central US become an inland sea again? Is the land (in the US)higher now then in the past? Where I live in Kansas City there is a great layer of limestone, apparently the bottom of an ancient ocean(?). I'd be curious to see a map of modeled ocean rise. Last question, is the amount of water on the planet the same over eons with only it's state changing? I guess the question is, is Earth a closed system and does the conservation of energy apply?
Cheers
Matt
PS # 33 returned safely from Egypt this AM

Matt, it seems unlikely that the larger part of Antarctica will melt, though that still leaves us at risk for some 30 feet of sea level rise. If all of Antarctica were to melt, we would be looking at 200 feet or so, if I recall right.

This would not be high enough to flood Kansas City, though. The limestone on the high plains is very old, old enough that the configurations of the continents have changed.

The amount of water on the earth changes very little over time, little enough that it's reasonable to call it constant over billion year time scales. There is a little steam coming out of volcanoes and I would guess (not sure here) a little water that gets subducted in the rifts but these are very small quantities. The continents do move around and tilt up and down though.

Energy conservation most certainly does apply; it is the fundamental equation of climate.

However, the earth is not a closed system. Solar energy comes in. In order that the planet reach an approximately stable state, some energy must escape. It mostly escapes as thermal emissions in the infrared band.

Humans change climate by making it harder for infrared energy to escape. The system must change somehow. Most likely it will heat up until the amount of escaping infrared gets back into balance. We call this "global warming".

So energy conservation (or conservation laws in general) applies to an open system. You just have to say "what's in the system is conserved, but what comes in gets added and what goes out gets subtracted".

Hope this helps.