Canada's Last Intact Ice Sheet Collapses; 43% Of Milne Ice Sheet Breaks Away

[hatrack]

Canada's last intact ice shelf has collapsed, researchers announced Thursday. A huge section of the Milne Ice Shelf, located on Ellesmere Island in the northern Canadian territory of Nunavut, collapsed into the Arctic Ocean, according to the Canadian Ice Service. This created an "ice island" that's about 30 square miles in size. As a comparison, Manhattan Island is about 23 square miles.

“Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the ice shelf, told Reuters. “This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it’s disintegrated, basically.”

The ice service said on Twitter that “above-normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up.”

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Link to tweet

EDIT

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/08/07/canada-last-intact-ice-shelf-milne-collapses-into-arctic-ocean/3319159001/

[SamKnause]

1. 30 square miles equals 19,200 acres.

Thanks for posting.