It is not certain if climate change is responsible for an ancient ice shelf that broke loose from Ellesmere Island. This is the largest breakup of Arctic ice in thirty years. The ‘Ayles Shelf’ was one of six existing ice shelves in Canada.
The shelf broke way in less than one hour, though it is reported the collapse happened about sixteen months ago. The occurrence was detected in satellite images.
“It’s like a cruise missile has come down and hit the ice shelf,”
remarked Warwick Vincent, a professor of biology, at Laval University in Quebec City. Traveling to the area, he found it to be the most dramatic collapse he had seen in his ten years of Arctic ecological research.
Luke Copland, an assistant professor at University of Ottawa’s dept of geography, had received funding from ‘Canada Foundation for Innovation’ for the ‘Laboratory for Cryospheric Research’ in order to monitor the state of glaciers, climate change and study ice in all of its forms.
BBC News reports the size of the ‘Ayles shelf’ is 66 square kilometers and may be 4500 years old. Concern has been raised for the possible risk to oil platforms which may be in its drift path.
In another BBC News Article the US announces recommendations for polar bears to be listed as a threatened species because of declining Arctic ice levels. Listing as “threatened” is one step away from being “endangered”.
US Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said polar bears were “one of nature’s ultimate survivors”. But he added,
“We are concerned the polar bears’ habitat may literally be melting.”
A department official points out the US had not had a species that had been
“listed with such a close correlation to climate change as this one”.
Polar bears may decline by as much as 30% in numbers over the next 45 years, according to a Swiss-based polar bear specialist group. The island formed by the remains of the Ayles shelf are said to be 15 kilometers long and five kilometers wide, and 30 to 40 meters thick. The breakup occurred approximately 800 miles south of the north pole. Scientists are using satellite and seismic data collected in order to access what may have happened.
