The effects of warming in the Antarctic Peninsula have been dramatic. In 2002, the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed, with 500 billion tons of ice breaking up into icebergs in less than a month. The larger Wilkins ice sheet, which is further south, lost 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) in 1998 and began to break up further last February.

I think of the ice pack as a gigantic cooling engine, stored as potential energy. It is the process of melting ice cubes that causes a warmer beverage to cool, for example. While there are substantial ice stores the cooling effect in the regions will offset the real significant measurements of actual Global Warming. When these reserves are depleted I suspect that measurable temperature increases in the polar regions will begin to rise more dramatically than expected. These real changes are being masked by the cooling effect of the melting ice pack but the melting ice is the real measurable symptom of the impact of the overall phenomenon, intuitively and logically.