[D66] Combidoom: Canada's last fully intact Arctic ice shelf collapses

[R.O.]

  'Entire cities are that size': Canada's last fully intact Arctic ice
  shelf collapses

The Milne Ice Shelf at the fringe of Ellesmere Island lost more than 40 
per cent of its area in just two days at the end of July The Milne Ice 
Shelf is at the fringe of Ellesmere Island

Author of the article:
Reuters
Reuters
Moira Warburton
Publishing date:
Aug 07, 2020  • Last Updated 3 days ago  • 3 minute read
Eureka Sound on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic is seen in a 
NASA Operation IceBridge survey picture taken March 25, 2014. 
REUTERS/NASA/Michael Studinger/Handout/File Photo


    Article content

The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, 
losing more than 40 per cent of its area in just two days at the end of 
July, researchers said on Thursday.

The Milne Ice Shelf is at the fringe of Ellesmere Island, in the 
sparsely populated northern Canadian territory of Nunavut.


<https://i.jsrdn.com/i/1.gif?r=a6fh&k=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&fwd=%2F%2Fwww.distro.tv%2F%3Futm_source%3Ddstream%26utm_medium%3Dchiclet%26utm_content%3Dchiclet%26utm_campaign%3Ddtv_dstream> 

“Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front 
of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up,” the 
Canadian Ice Service said on Twitter when it announced the loss on Sunday.
“Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” said Luke 
Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the 
research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf.


    Article content continued

    Satellite animation, from July 30 to August 4, shows the collapse of
    the last fully intact #iceshelf
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/iceshelf?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    in #Canada
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/Canada?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>.
    The Milne Ice Shelf, located on #EllesmereIsland
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/EllesmereIsland?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    in #Nunavut
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/Nunavut?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>,
    has now reduced in area by ~43%. #MilneIceIsland
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/MilneIceIsland?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    #seaice
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/seaice?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    #Arctic
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/Arctic?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    #earthrightnow
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/earthrightnow?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    #glacier
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/glacier?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    pic.twitter.com/jjs1gawoxA <https://t.co/jjs1gawoxA>

    — ECCC Canadian Ice Service (@ECCC_CIS) August 4, 2020
    <https://twitter.com/ECCC_CIS/status/1290740808170307584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 square kilometers. By comparison, 
the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 square kilometers.

“This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it’s 
disintegrated, basically,” Copland said.

The Arctic has been warming at twice the global rate for the last 30 
years, due to a process known as Arctic amplification. But this year, 
temperatures in the polar region have been intense. The polar sea ice 
hit its lowest extent for July in 40 years. Record heat and wildfires 
have scorched Siberian Russia.

Summer in the Canadian Arctic this year in particular has been 5 degrees 
Celsius above the 30-year average, Copland said.


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That has threatened smaller ice caps, which can melt quickly because 
they do not have the bulk that larger glaciers have to stay cold. As a 
glacier disappears, more bedrock is exposed, which then heats up and 
accelerates the melting process.

“The very small ones, we’re losing them dramatically,” he said, citing 
researchers’ reviews of satellite imagery. “You feel like you’re on a 
sinking island chasing these features, and these are large features. 
It’s not as if it’s a little tiny patch of ice you find in your garden.”

The ice shelf collapse on Ellesmere Island also meant the loss of the 
northern hemisphere’s last known epishelf lake, a geographic feature in 
which a body of freshwater is dammed by the ice shelf and floats atop 
ocean water.


    Article content continued

A research camp, including instruments for measuring water flow through 
the ice shelf, was lost when the shelf collapsed. “It is lucky we were 
not on the ice shelf when this happened,” said researcher Derek Mueller 
of Carleton University in Ottawa, in an Aug. 2 blog post.

Ellesmere also lost its two St. Patrick Bay ice caps this summer.

“We saw them going, like someone with terminal cancer. It was only a 
matter of time,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and 
Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

Serreze and other NSIDC scientists had published a 2017 study predicting 
the ice caps were likely to disappear within five years. The ice caps 
were believed to have formed several centuries ago.

The vanishing was confirmed last month, when NASA satellite shots of the 
region revealed a complete lack of snow and ice, said Serreze, who 
studied the caps as a graduate student on his first trip to the Arctic 
years ago. At the time, he said, the caps had seemed like immovable 
parts of the geography.

“When I was there in the 1980s I knew every square inch of those ice 
caps,” he said. “You have the memories. It’s like your first girlfriend.”

Meanwhile, another two ice caps on Ellesmere — called Murray and Simmons 
— are also diminishing and are likely to disappear within 10 years, 
Serreze said.

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