John Bacon

USA TODAY

It could be global warming or it could just be nature having its way, but you can bet that another major chunk of ice will soon break off an Antarctica ice shelf.

Seriously, you can bet on it.

Irish bookmaker Paddy Power is offering 6-to-1 odds that an iceberg almost the size of Delaware — or Luxembourg, in European terms — will break free this month from the Larsen C Ice Shelf. An ice shelf, for the lesser learned, is a permanent floating sheet of ice that connects to a landmass, the National Snow and Ice Data Center tells us.

“You don’t have to be Captain of the Titanic to spot this is a serious problem for the planet, so we thought we’d do our bit to raise some awareness," Paddy Power said in a statement.

February and March are summer months in the southern hemisphere and are the "most likely months for the biggest break-up since Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie," the bookmaker says. The odds that the ice shelf will "calve" are posted at 7-2 for each of those months. By October, the odds slide to 25-1.

Of course, Paddy Power's odds could be way off. Three weeks before the U.S. presidential election, the gambling giant was already paying off bettors who put money on Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump. Paddy Power figured Clinton had an 85.7% chance of winning. Her odds of 2-11 amounted to a "done deal."

"Trump gave it a hell of a shot going from a rank outsider to the Republican candidate but the recent flood of revelations have halted his momentum and his chances now look as patchy as his tan," the bookmaker said in a statement at the time.

Giant iceberg set to break off of Antarctica

The gambling may be all fun and games, but the break off is serious. Project Midas, a British Antarctic research project, has been tracking the rift for almost two years. The researchers say that after a few months of steady, incremental advance, the rift grew suddenly by a further 11 miles during the second half of December. Only a final 12 miles of ice now connects the iceberg to its parent ice shelf.

"When it calves, the Larsen C Ice Shelf will lose more than 10% of its area to leave the ice front at its most retreated position ever recorded," researchers reported last week. "This event will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula."

Long term, Larsen C may eventually find the same fate as Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 following a similar split.

The good news is the iceberg shouldn't contribute to sea-level rise since it's already floating. However, land ice that had been blocked by the berg could crash into the sea and raise sea levels, NASA scientist Thomas P. Wagner said.

There is not enough information to know whether the split is a result of climate change or not, but there is "good scientific evidence" climate change has caused thinning of the ice shelf, the British researchers say. With that in mind, Paddy Power is offering another bet on whether Trump will call a press conference to announce that global warming really is a major concern.

But Paddy Power figures it's a long shot: "Back The Don to admit he was wrong at 66-1."

Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard and Doyle Rice