---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 20:34:33 -0500 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Giant ice island breaks off Arctic shelf
Giant ice island breaks off Arctic shelf Staff and agencies Friday December 29, 2006 <http://environment.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329672605-121568,00.html> An ice island the size of a small city is adrift in the Arctic after breaking free from one of Canada's largest ice shelves, scientists said today. The ice island is 37 metres (120ft) thick and measures 9 miles by 3 miles, according to the CanWest News Service. It broke clear from Ellesmere island, about 500 miles south of the North Pole, 16 months ago, triggering tremors so powerful they were picked up by earthquake monitors 155 miles away. Scientists have only just released details about the island after piecing together the break-up from seismic monitors and satellite images. Within days of breaking free from its fjord on Ellesmere, the floating ice island had drifted a few miles offshore. It travelled west for 31 miles until it froze into the sea ice in early winter. The island was part of the Ayles ice shelf, one of six major ice shelves in Canada's Arctic. Scientists believe the shelf's break-up - the largest of its kind in the Canadian Artic in 30 years - is the result of global warming. The Artic expert Warwick Vincent, of Laval University in Quebec, said he had never seen such a dramatic loss of sea ice and suggested the break-up indicated that climate change was accelerating. Dr Vincent, who has travelled to the ice island, said yesterday: "This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead. "We think this incident is consistent with global climate change. We aren't able to connect all of the dots ... but unusually warm temperatures definitely played a major role." He said Canada's remaining ice shelves were 90% smaller than when they were first discovered 100 years ago. The huge ice island could pose a hazard to shipping and the oil and gas industry if it drifts further south into the Beaufort sea in the spring thaw. Laurie Weir, who monitors ice conditions for the Canadian Ice Service, said: "Over the next few years this ice island could drift into populated shipping routes. There's significant oil and gas development in this region as well, so we'll have to keep monitoring its location over the next few years." Ms Weir was poring over satellite images in 2005 when she noticed that the shelf had split and separated. She notified Luke Copland, head of the new global ice laboratory at the University of Ottawa, who initiated an effort to find out what happened. Using US and Canadian satellite images, as well as data from seismic monitors, Professor Copland discovered that the ice shelf collapsed on the afternoon of August 13 2005. "What surprised us was how quickly it happened," he said. "It's pretty alarming. Even 10 years ago scientists assumed that when global warming changes occur that it would happen gradually so that perhaps we expected these ice shelves just to melt away quite slowly, but the big surprise is that, for one they are going, but secondly, that when they do go, they just go suddenly, it's all at once, in a span of an hour." Guardian Unlimited ?? Guardian News and Media Limited 2006 _____________________________________________ Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it. Submit via email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Submit via the Web: portside.org/submit Frequently asked questions: portside.org/faq Subscribe: portside.org/subscribe Unsubscribe: portside.org/unsubscribe Account assistance: portside.org/contact Search the archives: portside.org/archive
