Ancient ice shelf breaks free in Canadian Arctic

SuzannePjam

Ancient ice shelf breaks free in Canadian Arctic
Breakaway may 'signal the onset of accelerated change,' researchers say

TORONTO - A giant ice shelf has snapped free from an island south of the North Pole, scientists said Thursday, citing climate change as a “major” reason for the event.
The Ayles Ice Shelf — all 41 square miles of it — broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 500 miles south of the North Pole in the Canadian Arctic.
Scientists discovered the event by using satellite imagery. Within one hour of breaking free, the shelf had formed as a new ice island, leaving a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake.
Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and couldn’t believe what he saw.
“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,” Vincent said. “We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead.”
The ice shelf was one of six major shelves remaining in Canada’s Arctic. They are packed with ancient ice that is more than 3,000 years old. They float on the sea but are connected to land.
'Consistent with climate change'
Some scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in Canada in 30 years and that climate change was a major element.
“It is consistent with climate change,” Vincent said, adding that the remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first discovered in 1906. “We aren’t able to connect all of the dots ... but unusually warm temperatures definitely played a major role.”
Laurie Weir, who monitors ice conditions for the Canadian Ice Service, was poring over satellite images in 2005 when she noticed that the shelf had split and separated.
Weir notified Luke Copland, head of the new global ice lab at the University of Ottawa, who initiated an effort to find out what happened.
Using U.S. and Canadian satellite images, as well as seismic data — the event registered on earthquake monitors 155 miles away — Copland discovered that the ice shelf collapsed in the early afternoon of Aug. 13, 2005.
Copland said the speed with which climate change has effected the ice shelves has surprised scientists.
“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,” he said.
Derek Mueller, a polar researcher with Vincent’s team, said the ice shelves get weaker and weaker as temperatures rise. He visited Ellesmere Island in 2002 and noticed that another ice shelf had cracked in half.
“We’re losing our ice shelves and this a feature of the landscape that is in danger of disappearing altogether from Canada,” Mueller said.
Within days of breaking free, the Ayles Ice Shelf drifted about 30 miles offshore before freezing into the sea ice. A spring thaw may bring another concern: that warm temperatures will release the new ice island from its Arctic grip, making it an enormous hazard for ships.
“Over the next few years this ice island could drift into populated shipping routes,” Weir said.

MakingWaves

Not to say there aren't problems with the ice caps, but I don't believe any of these stories that predict all of these horrible things happening because an iceberg broke free. In 2000 an iceberg that had an area of over 2,000 square miles broke free and the environment seems to be about the same and no rapid changes happened then.
But the point that this is happening too much is well taken.

69charger

"A giant ice shelf has snapped free from an island south of the North Pole"

Well that really narrows it down ;-)










p.s. Yes, I know they were more specific a few sentences later.

gue_barium

MakingWaves wrote:

Not to say there aren't problems with the ice caps, but I don't believe any of these stories that predict all of these horrible things happening because an iceberg broke free. In 2000 an iceberg that had an area of over 2,000 square miles broke free and the environment seems to be about the same and no rapid changes happened then.
But the point that this is happening too much is well taken.

It isn't so much "the iceberg that broke free" as it is the rapid cumulative ice melt.

searchlightsoul

Natural warming is a bitch isn't it?

world

Now we know what the cave-men had to deal with when their climate changed on them.

OceansJenny

searchlightsoul wrote:

Natural warming is a bitch isn't it?

Exactly where you're wrong (if you are saying that people have nothing to do with this). This is because of PEOPLE; this is GLOBAL WARMING. This is because we pump tons and tons of CO2 into the atmosphere everyday and have no intent to change any of that, or to at least decrease it!!

I'm not sure if anyone here really "gets it" (except maybe suzanne); the breaking of the ice shelves is SIGNIFICANT. Are those shelves going to reattach themselves anytime soon?? Hell no. And no, theres not going to be a period of global warming and them global "ice-ing" or whatever you want to call it because theres a giant cloud of CO2 blocking a good amount of radiation from escaping Earth. The "best" part? It's only going to get thicker.

Everyone say hello to a future of continental flooding, increased yearly temperatures, plants and animals going into extinction, infections increasing worldwide (because disease carriers like mosquitoes will have a wider span of territory as their livable climate area expands), and basically environmental destruction.

Anyone see an Inconvenient Truth? If you havent, you should. And no, thats not my main source, but it's what inspired me to research the subject further.

Ahnimus

OceansJenny wrote:

Exactly where you're wrong (if you are saying that people have nothing to do with this). This is because of PEOPLE; this is GLOBAL WARMING. This is because we pump tons and tons of CO2 into the atmosphere everyday and have no intent to change any of that, or to at least decrease it!!

I'm not sure if anyone here really "gets it" (except maybe suzanne); the breaking of the ice shelves is SIGNIFICANT. Are those shelves going to reattach themselves anytime soon?? Hell no. And no, theres not going to be a period of global warming and them global "ice-ing" or whatever you want to call it because theres a giant cloud of CO2 blocking a good amount of radiation from escaping Earth. The "best" part? It's only going to get thicker.

Everyone say hello to a future of continental flooding, increased yearly temperatures, plants and animals going into extinction, infections increasing worldwide (because disease carriers like mosquitoes will have a wider span of territory as their livable climate area expands), and basically environmental destruction.

Anyone see an Inconvenient Truth? If you havent, you should. And no, thats not my main source, but it's what inspired me to research the subject further.

I suggest you look at the concordance between CO2 and global temperature. Also read the EPA's website on global warming. This environmental hysteria associated with global warming is primarily fueled by Greenpeace which is an anti-globalist movement, not a pro-environment movement

Most of the things you mentioned, including the spread of disease, will in-fact occur weather we exist to witness it or not. Global Warming/Cooling is about a 100,000 year cycle, based on I believe Volstak testing. It's relative to the solar position of earth and the activity of the sun. While we do contribute to the global temperature, I find it insignificant based on the real data available.

brain of c

the ice in my coke melted.:(

Collin

Saw that on the news. Bummer.

polaris

2007 gonna be warmest on record ... there's golf courses open here in the great white north ... and i didn't get any snow over the holidays ... @#&!

onelongsong

OceansJenny wrote:

Exactly where you're wrong (if you are saying that people have nothing to do with this). This is because of PEOPLE; this is GLOBAL WARMING. This is because we pump tons and tons of CO2 into the atmosphere everyday and have no intent to change any of that, or to at least decrease it!!

I'm not sure if anyone here really "gets it" (except maybe suzanne); the breaking of the ice shelves is SIGNIFICANT. Are those shelves going to reattach themselves anytime soon?? Hell no. And no, theres not going to be a period of global warming and them global "ice-ing" or whatever you want to call it because theres a giant cloud of CO2 blocking a good amount of radiation from escaping Earth. The "best" part? It's only going to get thicker.

Everyone say hello to a future of continental flooding, increased yearly temperatures, plants and animals going into extinction, infections increasing worldwide (because disease carriers like mosquitoes will have a wider span of territory as their livable climate area expands), and basically environmental destruction.

Anyone see an Inconvenient Truth? If you havent, you should. And no, thats not my main source, but it's what inspired me to research the subject further.

fully agreed. and how do they explain coastal towns being evacuated due to rising oceans? or the methane being generated by decomposing vegetation now under water? or the stratification of the tundra? when galelleo proved the earth revolved around the sun; the ignorant didn't believe it either. i guess time will show us the truth. it's too late now anyway.

miller8966

OMG! Im so nervous

inmytree

yeah, who cares...I say we should keep on pollutin' and prayin' to god...

yield2me

I like it warm

surferdude

Given that we don't know how much of the current climate change is due to man, are we better off spending finite dollars in preventing man from contibuting to climate change or in adapting to climate change?

polaris

surferdude wrote:

Given that we don't know how much of the current climate change is due to man, are we better off spending finite dollars in preventing man from contibuting to climate change or in adapting to climate change?

biggest myth: tackling climate change = excessive spending ...

just like the clean air act recycles exiting legislation - all we need is to act ... we don't need to spend indispensable money ... we just need leadership and a willing populace ... most things that would reduce emissions would be cost beneficial to the user ... tell me anything u would think of doing that would reduce your emissions/footprint that would cost you money over the long term?

farfromglorified

OceansJenny wrote:

Everyone say hello to a future of continental flooding, increased yearly temperatures, plants and animals going into extinction, infections increasing worldwide (because disease carriers like mosquitoes will have a wider span of territory as their livable climate area expands), and basically environmental destruction.

Hello.

LikeAnOcean

yield2me wrote:

I like it warm

I know what you mean. It's hard to argue against it. I'd prefer having global warming over another ice age. I like it being 50 degrees in Chicago in January... I really am against what we are doing to the environment, BUT you have to also understand Earth has gone through some drastic changes and there have been many periods with mass extinctions. It just so happens man is the cause this time around. I tend to think life will adapt and if man was no factor now, another Ice age in a few thousand years would do just as much damage as we could ever cause. Earth was once a lifeless rock. Earth once had great forests and dinosaurs.. hell another meteor would make what we're doing to the planet look like childs play.

My advise to people.. stop littering and stop spawning. Too many people=too much death and destruction.

onelongsong

Ahnimus wrote:

I suggest you look at the concordance between CO2 and global temperature. Also read the EPA's website on global warming. This environmental hysteria associated with global warming is primarily fueled by Greenpeace which is an anti-globalist movement, not a pro-environment movement

Most of the things you mentioned, including the spread of disease, will in-fact occur weather we exist to witness it or not. Global Warming/Cooling is about a 100,000 year cycle, based on I believe Volstak testing. It's relative to the solar position of earth and the activity of the sun. While we do contribute to the global temperature, I find it insignificant based on the real data available.

me thinks we need to forgive those who are ignorant to the problem and those knowing must take action themselves. i think it's time to sue the oil companies under the same legal grounds the tobacco industry was sued under.

Abookamongstthemany

LikeAnOcean wrote:

I know what you mean. It's hard to argue against it. I'd prefer having global warming over another ice age. I like it being 50 degrees in Chicago in January... I really am against what we are doing to the environment, BUT you have to also understand Earth has gone through some drastic changes and there have been many periods with mass extinctions. It just so happens man is the cause this time around. I tend to think life will adapt and if man was no factor now, another Ice age in a few thousand years would do just as much damage as we could ever cause.

Yeah but I don't wanna hasten the extinction of humans or other species any sooner. I think it's best to preserve life and the quality of it here on earth as long as we can.