The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40% 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. “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. The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 square kilometres. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 square kilometres. “This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it’s disintegrated, basically,” Copland said. Full story
Friday 7 August 2020
The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days at the end of July; The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 square kilometres. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 square kilometres.
Credit Radio Canada International
While the world understandably looks toward the Coronavirus and the social and political problems of America, global warming, or climate change, whatever you want to call it has been relatively forgotten in 2020. However, an exceptionally prolonged heatwave has been causing havoc in Northern Siberia since June with temperatures up to 10°C (50F) above average. Further West, the northernmost inhabited Arctic town, Longyearbyen on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, saw a new record temperature of 21.7°C (72F) on 25 July, compared to July average of 5.9°C, (43F). 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, according to Reuters. TBW
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