Immense Ice Shelf Breaks Off In Canadian Arctic

Original Article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061229/sc_afp/canadaarctic

MONTREAL (AFP) - An enormous ice shelf broke away from Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic last year, researchers said, warning it could be another symptom of global warming.

The 66-square-kilometer (25.5-square-mile) ice island tore away from Ellesmere, a huge strip of land in the Canadian Arctic close to Greenland.

The break occurred in August 2005 and was so violent that it caused tremors that were detected by Canadian seismographs 250 kilometers (155 miles) away, but at the time no one was able to pinpoint what had happened.

The Canadian Ice Service contacted geographer Luke Copland of the University of Ottawa, who reconstructed the chain of events by piecing together data from the seismic readings and satellite images provided by Canada and the United States.

"This loss is the biggest in 25 years, but it continues the loss that occurred within the last century," Copland told AFP, saying 90 percent of the the ice cover had been lost since the area was discovered in 1906.

"What is important and interesting is that it is sudden, quite large even," he said.

"In the past, we looked to climate change (and) thought perhaps ice shelves ... would just melt apart by losing a little piece day by day, but it now seems that when you reach some kind of threshold, when you reach that level, the whole thing just breaks apart."

Following the discovery, biologist Warwick Vincent of Laval University in Quebec, visited the icy waters of the Arctic to view the "new island."

Vincent said he had seen nothing like it in the past decade. "It really is incredible," Vincent was quoted as saying by the newspaper National Post.

"People talk of endangered animals -- well, these are endangered landscape features, and we are losing them," he said.

Louis Fortier, scientific director of ArcticNet, a Canadian Artic research network, said the massive breakoff signaled a rise in Arctic warming.

"This Ellesmere ice shelf was sheltering unique ecosystems on the planet; there are freshwater lakes which were forming above and under the ice shelf," Fortier told AFP.

"The breakup of the ice cover on Ellesmere Island has been going on for 12,000 years, but it seems to have accelerated in recent years which is another indicator, among many others, of warming of the entire Arctic cryosphere," he said, referring to low-temperature elements of weather such as ice and snow.

Canada conducts land, sea and aerial observations of the Arctic ice surface, but often these studies target certain areas and ignore vast, uninhabited areas, the environment ministry says, making satellite images crucial.

The sudden formation of a "new island" in the Arctic "is a symptom among a cluster of symptoms of global warming, the most important evidently being the spectacular redcution in the extent and thickness of the Arctic ice field," Fortier said.

In an article published in December, Canadian and US researchers predicted that by 2040 Arctic Ocean ice will nearly disappear in the summer off the north coast of Greenland and Canada, opening a maritime corridor that would reduce shipping time between Europe and Asia.

 

i thought they repaired global warming!

 

Whoa! Thats a big chunk of ice.

 

Global warming sucks <.<..

I watched this Al Gore movie, and there was a part, where it says 'By the time it reaches 20??(Forgot year), most of Manhattan,NY will be covered in water'

Oh noes!!

 

lol very nice
but yea its becoming a large issue we need to reduce the production of CFC's
thats whats killing alot of the ozone around us
most of the depletion though occurs in the arctic and antarctic where the major ozone holes are

 

oohh God this global warming crap is pointless

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record

if you're so worried about Grean house emmissions, stop breathing.

if a ----ing turtle can survive countless cycles of global warming and cooling (REAL GLOBAL WARMING AND COOLING AT THAT) so can the human race.

worst case scenario, the water level raises 50 feat and I have beach front property.

 

Amen to that.

 

we could if america did more.

 

hey asshat, america has the strictest enviromental standards in thw world thanks to the nixon administration a few decades ago.

RIGHT NOW EUROPE IS FAR LESS ENVIROMENTALLY FRIENDLY.
that's why American buisiness is going to Europe, fewer enviromental laws and restrictions.



get you're facts straight dip----.


Edit: please donnot take offense I was meraly stating facts, and the profanity was fore purely emotional impact, I have nothing against you, and since your'e so stupid I didn't even take them time to read your name, so rest assured, I have nothign against you and do nto hold any grudges.


EDIT2: wait america has per capita the highest co2 emissions.. still has a significantly lwoer overal polutionr ate though, including other greenhouse gases.

 

Yeah, because we all know that everything is America's fault. For example, I got cut off in traffic today on my way to work. Must have been Bush and his evil followers, the Americans again.

 

there's been so many temperature changes throughout history. I mean Greenland used to be green, and iceland used to be ice (hense how they got their names, vikings gave it to them when they landed there, iceland was covered in ice, etc... then iceland's ice melted and greenland got covered)

Hell, there's palm tree fossils on Antartica!! There's a lot of weird things happening in the world, it's all part of a shift.

 

I am not all taht worried about it, cause this kind of thing only happens once over like 30 years. By the time it happens enough to be a threat, I will most likely be dead.

 

HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA :lol:

 

Wrong - Iceland and Greenland were given each other's names so those who named them could keep the real land. Where would you go to back then, a place that practically screams "I'm covered in ice and stuff!" or a place that says "Look at me! There's grass growing here and you can farm and stuff?"

 

Global Warming is real and is happening. You can't blame just one group of people.
A lot of us are ignorant. Some of you are saying we need to put a stop to it yet you're hopping in your car the next hour and atributing to it.
It's not something that will suddently stop.
As for the kid that said "If a ----ing turtle can survive countless cycles [...] so can the human race."
The Earth is over populated by humans. If a big catastrophy would occur in which temperatures reached incredible highs (110+) panic would strike many. Comparing turtles to humans is obsurd. Oceans, ponds, lkes, and et cetera are amongst their natural habitats. They stay hidrated and have a food supply there as well. Do you remember New Orleans? City was flooded, no electricity, no air conditioning and many people died from the heat. That's over a week or so. Global warming won't just leave, you can't build a dam to hold back a rising ocean along our coasts.
However, no matter how much we sit at our computers and type off we're all ignorant as to what's going to happen, even if anything does happen. That's not a bad thing though, ignorance is bliss. That's not saying we don't do anything about it. Simply stating that sitting here typing off wont save our planet, put your words into action.