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A dreadful rumbling is heard, a menacing, guttural rumbling like the onset of an earthquake. Then comes a cracking, a disjointed angular sound as a thin vein runs along the mountaintop. Finally, a large chunk of ice cracks from the rest of the structure, descending slowly into the ocean. A close-up of a melancholic family of polar bears plays out along with faint violin noises. Nearly all of us have seen such a scene in a nature documentary about the melting ice caps.

What we do not often see is the truly fearsome aftermath of these crackling, massive ice structures plummeting into the ocean …