Sounds like apocalyptic fiction, but nope, it’s just the news. Maybe this gargantuan ice cube will make those who deny the relevance of global warming take note:

A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada’s Arctic, scientists said.The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada’s remote north.

Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw.”This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead,” Vincent said Thursday.

The exercise:
Write about a natural event with catastrophic consequences.