Extreme weather continues

Extreme weather patterns linked to climate change continue around the world, causing the formation of a giant crack in Antarctica’s fastest-melting glacier and bitterly cold winters in Alaska and northern Europe.

A crevasse 19 miles long and 260 feet wide has formed in Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica (pictured), which scientists expect will cause the calving of an iceberg covering 350 square miles, an area larger than all of New York City, according to National Geographic.

Paradoxically, melting ice in the Arctic has been linked to Europe’s bitterly cold temperatures—which have killed scores in the Ukraine, Poland and Romania—because previously frozen areas of ocean are now exposed to the atmosphere, thus changing wind patterns. The same phenomenon has been linked to January’s record cold in Alaska.