Witness to an Antarctic Meltdown; July 2012; Scientific American Magazine; by Douglas Fox; 8 Page(s)

In 1995, 10 argentine soldiers witnessed a cataclysm that no other humans have ever seen, one that has since altered our understanding of climate change.

The men were stationed at Matienzo Base, a dreary cluster of steel huts that sat atop a wedge of volcanic rock jutting from the sea, 50 kilometers off the coast of Antarctica. The island was surrounded by a plain of glacial ice covering 1,500 square kilometers25 times the area of Manhattan. Although the ice shelf floated on the sea, it was 200 meters thickas solid as bedrock. Yet Captain Juan Pedro Brückner sensed that something was wrong. Meltwater had formed ponds that dotted the ice. He could hear a gurgling sound as the water seeped down into a network of descending cracks. Day and night, Brückner's men heard deep convulsions that sounded like subway trains passing underneath their beds. The rumbles grew more and more frequent.