Major Arctic ice shelf cracks

Major Arctic ice shelf cracks

MONTREAL: Two chunks of ice together measuring 20sqkm have broken off
an Arctic ice shelf, the biggest breakup of Arctic ice in three years,
Canadian officials announced.

Two floating islands of ice formed after the chunks broke from the
Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic
Archipelago, officials said.

"The first broke off sometime around July 22 and the second in the
night of July 23 to 24," said a senior iceberg forecaster for
Environment Canada's Ice Service, Luc Desjardins.

Scientists confirmed the phenomenon in a fly-over of the first mass of
ice and by analysing the satellite data.

It was the largest breakup of an ice shelf in the Arctic since the
Ayles Ice Shelf broke off the Ellesmere Island coast in 2005 and
formed a floating island of ice roughly the size of New York city's
Manhattan.

Five vast ice shelves surround the north side of Ellesmere Island in
Canada's Nunavut Territory. Ward Hunt is considered the largest, with
a surface area of 443sqkm.

However, Arctic sea ice is unlikely to shrink below a 2007 record low
this year in a reprieve from the worst predictions of climate change
even though new evidence confirms a long-term thaw is under way,
experts said.

The record raised worries of a melt that could leave the North Pole
ice-free this year, threaten indigenous hunters and thaw ice vital for
creatures like polar bears.

It would also help open the Arctic to shipping and oil and gas firms.

"Most likely there will not be a new record minimum ice year in the
Arctic this September. Arctic ice reaches an annual summer low in
September but is one million sqkm bigger than at the same time in late
July 2007." said the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre in
west Norway.

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