Nearly a month ago, Science Daily wrote:

The West Antarctic rift is a region of volcanic activity and crustal stretching that is roughly the size of the western United States (from Salt Lake City to the Pacific Ocean).

About 98 percent of it is buried beneath glacial ice, up to 2.5 miles thick, and bedrock beneath the ice is 2000–3000 feet below sea level over large areas. All of this makes it a difficult region to study.

It is interesting nevertheless, because volcanic eruptions beneath the ice could destabilize the ice sheet, leading to as much as 25 feet of sea-level rise. How likely is it that this could happen is a question scientists have debated for over a decade. LeMasurier addresses the question by comparing the West Antarctic rift with similar areas of crustal stretching elsewhere in the world.

Then, in October 1999, it wrote:

An immense expanse of Antarctic ice that has been receding steadily for 10,000 years poses the most immediate threat of a large sea level rise because of its potential instability, a new study indicates.

10,000 years, way before humans were numerous enough to wreck the planet.

But this week, we got this:

A crumbling ice shelf along the West Antarctic Peninsula has become the latest polar poster child for global warming.

This week, researchers in the United States, Britain, and Taiwan released images of long stretches of ice shearing away from the shelf. What started with the loss of a relatively thin, 26-mile-long iceberg at the end of February cascaded into the loss of 160 square miles of ice by the end of last week.