A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere

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updated 6:29 p.m. ET, Wed., Sept. 3, 2008

 

TORONTO - A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken

away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another

dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar

frontier, scientists said Wednesday.

 

Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in

Ontario, told The Associated Press that the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice

Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now

adrift in the Arctic Ocean.

 

" The Markham Ice Shelf was a big surprise because it suddenly

disappeared. We went under cloud for a bit during our research and

when the weather cleared up, all of a sudden there was no more ice

shelf. It was a shocking event that underscores the rapidity of

changes taking place in the Arctic, " said Mueller.

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Mueller also said that two large sections of ice detached from the

Serson Ice Shelf, shrinking that ice feature by 47 square miles — or

60 percent — and that the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has also continued to

break up, losing an additional eight square miles.

 

Mueller reported last month that seven square miles of the

170-square-mile and 130-feet-thick Ward Hunt shelf had broken off.

 

Greenland glacier also threatened

This comes on the heels of unusual cracks in a northern Greenland

glacier, rapid melting of a southern Greenland glacier, and a near

record loss for Arctic sea ice this summer. And earlier this year a

160-square mile chunk of an Antarctic ice shelf disintegrated.

 

" Reduced sea ice conditions and unusually high air temperatures have

facilitated the ice shelf losses this summer, " said Luke Copland,

director of the Laboratory for Cryospheric Research at the University

of Ottawa. " And extensive new cracks across remaining parts of the

largest remaining ice shelf, the Ward Hunt, mean that it will continue

to disintegrate in the coming years. "

 

Formed by accumulating snow and freezing meltwater, ice shelves are

large platforms of thick, ancient sea ice that float on the ocean's

surface but are connected to land.

 

Ellesmere Island was once entirely ringed by a single enormous ice

shelf that broke up in the early 1900s. All that is left today are the

four much smaller shelves that together cover little more than 299

square miles.

 

Martin Jeffries of the U.S. National Science Foundation and University

of Alaska Fairbanks said in a statement Tuesday that the summer's ice

shelf loss is equivalent to over three times the area of Manhattan,

totaling 82 square miles — losses that have reduced Arctic Ocean ice

cover to its second-biggest retreat since satellite measurements began

30 years ago.

 

" These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate

that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in

balance for thousands of years are no longer present, " said Mueller.

 

During the last century, when ice shelves would break off, thick sea

ice would eventually reform in their place.

 

'Scary scenario'

" But today, warmer temperatures and a changing climate means there's

no hope for regrowth. A scary scenario, " said Mueller.

 

The loss of these ice shelves means that rare ecosystems that depend

on them are on the brink of extinction, said Warwick Vincent, director

of Laval University's Centre for Northern Studies and a researcher in

the program ArcticNet.

 

" The Markham Ice Shelf had half the biomass for the entire Canadian

Arctic Ice Shelf ecosystem as a habitat for cold, tolerant microbial

life; algae that sit on top of the ice shelf and photosynthesis like

plants would. Now that it's disappeared, we're looking at ecosystems

on the verge of distinction,' said Mueller.

 

Along with decimating ecosystems, drifting ice shelves and warmer

temperatures that will cause further melting ice pose a hazard to

populated shipping routes in the Arctic region — a phenomenon that

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to welcome.

 

Harper announced last week that he plans to expand exploration of the

region's known oil and mineral deposits, a possibility that has become

more evident as a result of melting sea ice. It is the burning of oil

and other fossil fuels that scientists say is the chief cause of

manmade warming and melting ice.

 

Harper also said Canada would toughen reporting requirements for ships

entering its waters in the Far North, where some of those territorial

claims are disputed by the United States and other countries