Mueller: All of the other ice shelves had broken up in past years, so it wasn’t a question of if for this particular ice shelf. A colleague of mine actually died [in the field]; he was one of the world leaders studying glaciers in the Arctic, and he fell through a crevasse on the Greenland ice sheet. The remote area in the northern reach of the Nunavut Territory, has seen ice cover shrink from over 4 metres thick in the 1950s to complete loss, according to scientists, during recent years of record warming. Animals have been found living beneath ice shelves before, but never – to Mueller and his colleagues’ knowledge – inside of one. By 2005 it was down to six remaining ice shelves but "the Milne was really the last complete ice shelf," she said. “It is lucky that we were not on the ice shelf when this happened,” one colleague, Derek Mueller, wrote in a blogpost following the discovery. It only shows us how important it is to continue monitoring this coastline and acquiring imagery in this specific area at even higher resolution. The Milne Ice Shelf is at the edge of Ellesmere Island, in the far northern Canadian territory of Nunavut. Copland: If you look at the changes [over time], we’ve lost more than 90% of ice shelves in the last hundred years. The enormous Milne ice shelf, which was the last intact ice shelf in Canada and which White had studied closely before as a PhD student, was dissolving. The enormous Milne ice shelf, which was the last intact ice shelf in Canada and which White had studied closely before as a PhD student, was dissolving. Situated on the north-west coast of Ellesmere Island, it is located about 270 km (170 mi) west of Alert, Nunavut. The Milne ice shelf was on of the Arctic’s few remaining intact ice shelves, but at the end of July 2020 about 43% broke off. But to form an ice shelf, it takes hundreds to thousands of years, because you need a gradual buildup of snow and ice. In the Arctic, some ice shelves on northern Ellesmere Island receive input from surrounding glaciers (e.g., Milne Ice Shelf), whereas others have built up from the in situ thickening of sea ice and surface snow accumulation with no known glacial input (e.g., Ward Hunt Ice Shelf) (Jeffries, 1992). (Luke Copland/Courtesy Carleton University) The 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf, located at the edge of Ellesmere Island in the northern territory of Nunavut, collapsed at the end of last month, researchers announced this week. image caption By 31 July, the Milne Ice Shelf's northern front had fractured The Planet Earth-observation company has just released new imagery of the broken Milne Ice Shelf in the Arctic. We spoke to them about what that day was like, and where they go from here. The Milne Ice Shelf in Canada lost nearly half of its area in just two days. Looking first at the optical imagery, the same type of imagery you would see on Google Earth, I could see that there was a darker area on the Milne, but there were a lot of clouds on the image that I couldn’t see through. Ellesmere Island’ s ice shelves were subject to significant ruptures and calving events in 2003, 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2012. Warwick Vincent, a biology professor at Laval University who has worked in the Arctic for more than two decades, say such dramatic changes point to the need for greater protection for parts of the Arctic that will be the last to hold on to sea ice as the world warms. White: I always thought that the Milne was one of the more stable of the ice shelves; we had seen major breakups from the neighboring Serson and Peterson ice shelves, but the Milne seemed less susceptible to breakup. Adrienne White: At the Canadian Ice Service, we use satellite imagery to chart sea ice in Canadian waters. Researchers studying the area in the Arctic for years describe the day of the calving event – and where they go from here, Wed 14 Oct 2020 08.00 BST In August, Adrienne White – an ice analyst at the Canadian Ice Service who monitors the Canadian Arctic for changes in sea ice – was reviewing satellite imagery when she spotted something remarkable. At the end of July, 40% of the 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf, located on the north-western edge of Ellesmere Island, calved into the sea. The now-crumbled Milne Ice Shelf - situated in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada - was the last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic, Reuters reported on Thursday. Now, every year, we’ve seen open water along the entire coast of Ellesmere Island. [2][3], Glaciers and the morphology and structure of Milne Ice Shelf, Ellesmere Island, N.W.T., Canada, "Canada's last fully intact Arctic ice shelf collapses", "These Satellite Images Show the Final Days of Canada's Last Ice Shelf", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Milne_Ice_Shelf&oldid=973656399, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut geography stubs, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 18 August 2020, at 13:11. Moving forward, we’re still planning fieldwork, but being very careful and planning around safety. The day I discovered the Milne ice shelf calving event was a typical day; I came into work and was looking along the coastline of Ellesmere Island [to which the ice shelf was connected] for any changes; over the previous week, I’d noticed there was a lot of open water in the area, which can lead to destabilization. While other… Eye on the Arctic – Understanding the Milne ice shelf … Mueller: I always have to say yes, it’s too late. An uninhabited research camp was lost when the shelf collapsed. Luke Copland: I got a text from Adrienne – I remember it clearly – and it just said: “The Milne ice shelf is gone.” I saw it and thought, ‘Crap, is that real?’ We’d both spent a lot of time working and living on the ice shelf, flying around it, studying it, so I texted her back and she described the process and the timing. How did you first learn of the calving event? But the action we take now will prevent this – or mitigate it, anyway – in the future, in other places. Ice shelves were already vulnerable to change. Canada’s last fully intact Arctic ice shelf collapses The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 square kilometers. The Ellesmere Ice Shelf was the largest ice shelf in the Arctic, encompassing about 9,100 square kilometres (3,500 square miles) of the north coast of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. You [used to] have old sea ice attached to the coast and ice shelves filling fjords and bays. Eighty sq km broke free from Milne, leaving a still secure segment just 106 sq km in size. For Mueller, the breakup of the ice shelf is also potentially a lost opportunity. The Milne Ice Shelf, a fragment of the former Ellesmere Ice Shelf, is located in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. So, these are ecosystems that are lost basically for good now," Hamilton said. 4B and 5B). It’s like hearing bad news. In August, Adrienne White – an ice analyst at the Canadian Ice Service who monitors the Canadian Arctic for changes in sea ice – was reviewing satellite imagery when she spotted something remarkable. Mueller had been studying a channel that ran below the surface of the Milne ice shelf, like a river. Copland: We’re shifting more towards [studying] satellite images. Still, this ice shelf is huge, it’s bigger than large cities are, and it’s very strange to look at a satellite image one day and then look at [the same area] the next day, and the thing doesn’t exist any more. This was Milne Ice Shelf on the northern margin of Canada's Ellesmere Island. It is the second largest ice shelf in the Arctic Ocean. "These ice shelves are not going to regenerate anytime soon. The Milne Ice Shelf is seen before its collapse last summer. The Milne Ice Shelf acted as a sort of natural dam, trapping the meltwater at the head of the fiord and creating a rare epishelf lake—a layer of fresh water that floats directly on top of the ocean. A huge chunk larger than Manhattan, roughly 43% of the shelf, broke off in one piece. If we can make a change and hit these Paris climate accord targets, there is opportunity. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 square kilometers. It’s not an easy thing to get used to. And it seems that that crevasse is filled with water, which is ultimately the result of climate change. White: I was really surprised. And we had seen the southern edge, the part of the ice shelf at the back of the fjord, starting to melt away more and more each year. We’d seen increased melting on the surface and the bottom [of the Milne], as well as long-term thinning. With this collapse, the ice shelf took with it about 40% of Canada's total ice shelf, meaning the area itself is nearly half the size it once was. As Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf, it was estimated to have shrunk the remaining mass by 43 percent, losing more than 30 square miles of land area, which is bigger than the size of Manhattan.The JPSS imagery above shows smaller icebergs, or bergy water, that are floating by the coastline from August … White: This is really an area that has changed from [once] being completely ice-covered. Is it too late to save Canada’s remaining ice shelves from further breakup? A FULLY intact ice shelf in Canada has collapsed as the block of ice bigger than Manhattan snapped off. [1] It had been the last ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic to be fully intact until July 2020, when over 40 percent of the sheet collapsed within two days, a consequence of global warming. Derek Mueller: Shock and sadness, in some ways. In 1986, the ice shelf had an area of about 290 km2 (110 sq mi), with a central thickness of 100 m (330 ft). It was Canada's last intact Arctic ice shelf. Mueller: It’s one of those things: We need the data year-round and we can’t stay there year-round, so it’s always a risk. The entire icescape has changed. Copland believe ice shelves are “a canary in the coalmine” in the climate crisis, given that they are especially susceptible to atmospheric changes. Copland: For ice shelves, we can lose them very quickly; when they break up, that piece of the ice shelf is gone, it floats away. There’s also been a shift over the last few years to studying [the Arctic] by helicopter. The collapse occurred on July 30 and 31, reducing the last fully intact ice shelf in Canada by 43%. Last modified on Thu 15 Oct 2020 22.20 BST. We think of these as semi-permanent features. A south view of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf breaking apart is seen from Ward Hunt Island, Nunavut, in an Aug. 20, 2011, handout photo. They had observed rifts appearing over the Milne ice shelf throughout their careers. Milne Ice Shelf was Canada's last intact ice shelf — and it just collapsed. All rights reserved. Mueller had been studying a channel that ran below the surface of the Milne ice shelf, like a river. Mueller: The ice shelf is still half there. And as it collapsed into the ocean, it took with it much of the equipment her former colleagues had left there. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Our key study site on the ice shelf was lost, but we can find another study area potentially. Available for everyone, funded by readers. This recent ice exhibits an undulating topog- raphy where the ridges separate troughs filled with meltwater. Two researchers walking along the Milne Ice Shelf. In Milne Fiord and Ayles Fiord the ice island calving and ice shelf movement respectively created large areas that have become filled with new ice (Area A, Figs. Still, it was a shock to see the thickest, strongest part of the ice shelf break apart in this one big piece. Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf was no more. It was a question of when. Mueller is one of Canada’s leading ice shelf experts, along with Luke Copland, who supervised White’s PhD. Does this change your plans to study the area? The Milne Ice Shelf was 4,000 years old before it broke into several pieces and collapsed into the sea. Virus numbers by state Deals to your inbox 20 majors to If Trump won't concede It is the second largest ice shelf in the Arctic Ocean. An aerial view shows the breakup of the Milne Ice Shelf in late July 2020 (left) and animals found living in its ice cavity (right) at the site boxed in red . Between July 30 and August 4, the Milne Ice Shelf collapsed into the Arctic Ocean. In 2017, a team of researchers discovered scallops, sponges, worms and other organisms living some 20 meters deep, inside the ice shelf. Then I used radar satellite imagery, which can penetrate clouds, and with that we were able to clearly see the ice islands were separating from the ice shelf, and that the calving event was taking place. On July 30 and July 31, the northern part of the Arctic ice shelf began to break off. We also use this imagery to monitor glaciers and ice shelves for calving events that can produce large ice islands. "There aren't very many ice shelves around the Arctic anymore," Copland said. The ice shelf was first documented by the British Arctic Expedition of 1875-76, in which Lieutenant Pelham Aldrich's party went from Cape Sheridan to Cape Alert. The ice shelf, researchers say, lost more than … Ice shelves found in the island’s North are formed from sea ice and glacier ice and measure some 100 metres thick. The Milne Ice Shelf from the western side of Milne Fjord. “Our camp area and instruments were all destroyed in this event.”. There’s so many measures that we can’t make unless we’re in the field; for example, we can’t really measure how thick the ice is from space. You could put a weather station on a tripod on a glacier and it could fall over. 2B and 3B; Area E, Figs. It included instruments for measuring water flow through the ice shelf. You need a cold climate for centuries to form an ice shelf, but to lose one, you lose them immediately. Still, the breakup – known as a calving event – is significant. Situated on the north-west coast of Ellesmere Island, it … But the breakup of these ice shelves is really quite inevitable at this point; along the coast of northern Ellesmere Island, we’re seeing open water and warmer temperatures almost consistently every summer. Milne Ice Shelf was the last remnant of these once-great structures. We got two full years of data from ours, so we count ourselves lucky in that sense. Part of my PhD was looking at what made it so stable, [including] the fact that it was so much thicker and attached to the walls of this fjord. There’s lots of instruments floating around the Arctic that people [had] put out. On the other side of the island, the most northerly in Canada, the St Patrick’s Bay ice … That being said, it did have large fractures going across it that had been widening over the past few years. So we knew things were changing. The Milne Shelf is located within the Tuvaijuittuq marine protected area, which, perhaps ironically, translates to "the place where the ice never melts" in Inuktitut. It’s critically important that we heed these warnings. Together and separately, the three have been studying the Arctic for years. The Milne Ice Shelf has now been reduced in area by about 43%. That takes a day. Did you ever think you’d lose your equipment to an event like this? The Milne Ice Shelf was considered one of the least vulnerable to breaking because of the protection offered it by Milne Fjord. The Planet Earth-observation company has just released new imagery of the broken Milne Ice Shelf in the Arctic. White: Absolutely not. The Milne ice shelf was on of the Arctic’s few remaining intact ice shelves, but at the end of July 2020 about 43% broke off. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Milne Ice Shelf, a fragment of the former Ellesmere Ice Shelf, is located in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. 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