http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2112609.ece

Vast Ice Shelf Collapses In The Arctic

By Michael McCarthy

30 December 2006
The Independent

A vast ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has broken up, a further sign 
of the astonishing rate at which polar ice is now melting because of 
global warming.

The Ayles ice shelf, more than 40 square miles in extent - over five 
times the size of central London - has broken clear from the coast of 
Ellesmere Island, about 500 miles south of the North Pole in the 
Canadian Arctic, it emerged yesterday.

The broken shelf has formed an ice island, in what a leading 
scientist described as a "dramatic and disturbing event", citing 
climate change as the cause.

The news caps a dramatic year of discovery about just how quickly the 
polar ice is disappearing.

It comes as America's leading climate scientist, James Hansen, warns 
in today's Independent that the Earth is being turned into "a 
different planet" because of the continuing increase in man-made 
emissions of greenhouse gases.

The break-up of the Ayles shelf occurred 16 months ago, in an area so 
remote it was not at first detected. "This is a dramatic and 
disturbing event," said Professor Warwick Vincent of Laval University 
in Quebec City. "It shows that we are losing remarkable features of 
the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of 
years."Ice shelves float on the sea, but are connected to land (as 
opposed to ice sheets, which are wholly land-based). In the past five 
years, several ice shelves along the fringes of the Antarctic 
peninsula have started to become unstable or break up. The most 
spectacular was the 2002 collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf, the size 
of Luxembourg.

Until now, there had not been a similar event among the six major 
shelves remaining in Canada's Arctic, which are packed with ancient 
ice that is more than 3,000 years old.

Professor Vincent, who studies Arctic ecosystems, travelled to the 
newly formed ice island and was amazed at what he saw. "It's like a 
cruise missile has come down and hit the ice shelf," he said. 
"Unusually warm temperatures definitely played a major role. It is 
consistent with climate change." The collapse was picked up by the 
Canadian Ice Service, which notified Luke Copland, head of the new 
global ice laboratory at the University of Ottawa. Using US and 
Canadian satellite images, as well as seismic data - the event 
registered on earthquake monitors more than 150 miles away - 
Professor Copland discovered that the ice shelf collapsed in the 
early afternoon of 13 August 2005. Scientists were surprised at the 
speed of the event, Professor Copland said - it took less than an 
hour.

There have already been several disturbing indications this year that 
the Arctic ice is melting at a much faster rate than expected. In 
September, two Nasa reports showed a great surge in the disappearance 
of the winter sea ice over the past two years, with an area the size 
of Turkey disappearing in 12 months.

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited


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