By Hannah Strange for timesonline.co.uk

Giant sheets of ice measuring over seven square miles have broken off the largest remaining ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic, in a development consistent with climate change predictions.

Officials said that the chunks of ice split off the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off Ellesmere Island last week, forming two floating islands of 1.9 and 5.4 square miles. More could follow later this year, they warned.

It was the largest fracture of its kind since the nearby Ayles ice shelf - roughly the size of Manhattan at 25 square miles - broke away in 2005.

Scientists had already identified deep cracks in the Ward Hunt shelf, which measures around 155 square miles. The shelf is one of five along Ellesmere Island in the northern Arctic.

“Because the break-off occurred between two large parallel cracks they’re thinking more could go this summer before the freeze sets in,” Trudy Wohlleben of the Canadian Ice Service said.

Asked to be more specific, she said: “More could be a piece as large as the Ayles ice shelf.”

Click here for the full article.  

Average user rating

   (0 vote)