You Want Scale? We'll Give You Scale

Antarctica is losing ice. The rate of loss, according to researchers at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, who analyzed changes in the continent's gravitational pull, is around thirty-six cubic miles per year. (For comparison's sake, the city of Los Angeles uses about one-fifth of a cubic mile of water annually.) ... If the loss continues, it will mean that predictions for the rise in the sea level for the coming century are seriously understated.

--"Chilling," by Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, March 20, 2006.