Dec. 28 CanWest News Service Margaret Munro reported that an ancient ice shelf, 3,000 to 4500 years old, cracked off of its fjord on northern Ellesmere Island, creating a 66-square kilometer ice island. It broke up about 16 months ago, but the event was only pieced together recently after examining data from tremors picked up by earth quake monitors 250 kilometres away, along with recent satellite info from both Canada and the US..
The Ayles shelf, once one of six ice shelves left t in Canada, was a remnant of a vast icy fringe that extended across the top end of Ellesmere. The remaining five are situated 800 kilometers south of the North Pole, and their transformations or disappearance are therefore considered to be sentinels of major climate change. The shelves are 90 per cent smaller than in 1906. Apparently it took less than an hour for the ice shelf to calve off in the early afternoon of Aug 13, 2005. Within an hour the giant ice island was a kilometer off shore. It traveled west for 50 kilometers over the next few weeks, then moved east before freezing into the sea ice. With the likelihood of its floating away, there are concerns for ocean vessels and oil and gas extraction efforts in the Beaufort Sea. It was 3 C warmer than average in Ellesmere in 2005, and there were unusually brisk winds that blew summer pack ice off shore, exposing the Ayles shelf to waves and open water. Dec 15, Munro had also reported that thousands of frozen hills east of Hudson Bay have turned into muddy shallow lakes and ponds as permafrost continues to melt. The southern limit of permafrost in Canada has moved several hundred kilometres north over the last 150 years. Natalia Kuzmyn _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
