Canada’s ice shelves suffered massive erosion over the summer, losing almost one-quarter of their area, researchers have found.
The ice shelves on the north coast of Ellesmere lost 214 square kilometres over the summer, or an area three times larger than Manhattan Island, said a group of researchers from Ontario, Quebec and the United States on Tuesday.
The entire Markham ice shelf broke away in early August and is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean, carving away 50 square kilometres. Two large sections of the Serson ice shelf also broke off, shrinking it by 122 square kilometres or about 60 per cent. The Ward Hunt ice shelf lost 22 square kilometres.
“These substantial calving events underscore the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic,” said Dr. Derek Mueller, who has been studying the shelves at Trent University, in a statement. “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.”
