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One of Canada's five remaining Arctic ice shelves - the 4,500-year-old, 50-sq.-km. Markham Ice Shelf - has broken completely away from Ellesmere Island and drifted into the Arctic Ocean, the most dramatic sign yet of how rising temperatures and retreating sea ice are creating "irreversible" changes to the country's polar frontier.

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The missing Markham Ice Shelf

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More than 200 square kilometres of Canada's ice shelves - 23 per cent of the total area covered in Canada by these rare physical features - have disappeared this summer alone.

The latest analysis shows that the Ward Hunt shelf - a floating ice bridge that connects Ellesmere Island with Canada's northernmost piece of land, Ward Hunt Island - has lost an additional 22 square kilometres.

Southwest of Ward Hunt, the Serson Ice Shelf has shed 122 square kilometres this summer - 60 per cent of its total area.

A century ago, Ellesmere Island was covered with one continuous, massive ice shelf up to 70 metres thick and extending 500 km along its coastlines. Since then, about 90 per cent of the former "Ellesmere Island Ice Sheet" has disappeared - much of it during a warming period in the 1930s and '40s.By the 1990s, the single Ellesmere ice sheet had been reduced to six smaller, distinctive ice shelves: Serson, Petersen, Milne, Ayles, Ward Hunt and Markham.

The Ayles Ice Shelf broke away from its Ellesmere Island mooring in 2005, sending a 66-sq.-km "Ayles Ice Island" on a three-year trip throughout the Arctic archipelago.

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Ward Ice Shelf breaking off July 22-24, 2008

Link

BBC Article on Ward Hunt breakup



link

Edited by blt (09/02/08 08:46 PM)

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