Dude, where’s my ice shelf?

When I saw the news that the Ayles Ice Shelf at Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic had collapsed sixteen months ago, I thought that the news service was recycling old news for a slow period. But no—it collapsed 16 months ago and no-one noticed!

This shelf is small compared to the segment of the Ross Ice Shelf that broke off in the Antarctic. But it is 15 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide at its widest point. It is about 35 metres thick and it poses a danger to oil-drilling platforms in the area.

The ice in this shelf might be 4,500 years old. It has been a long time since the ice melted enough to let it break off. Scientists can not say that this is definitely caused by global warming. But it certainly is suggestive.

UPDATE: It wasn’t that nobody noticed, it’s that they didn’t make an announcement. The collapse of the ice shelf registered as a small earthquake, and occurred during the warmest summer on Ellesmere Island since 1960.

Here’s another article about the Arctic ice, with more facts, from the Playfuls.com Science and Technology pages.

For further events, please see “Ross Ice Shelf break-up in Antarctic” (Dec. 20, 2006), “Arctic Ice reaches new low in historic times” (Aug. 2007), and “Wilkins Ice Shelf collapses in Antarctica” (Mar. 2008).