Huge ice shelf breaks free in Canada
December 30 2006 at 03:04PM
By Jeffrey Jones
Calgary, Alberta - A chunk of ice bigger than the area of Manhattan broke from an ice shelf in Canada's far north and could wreak havoc if it starts to float westward toward oil-drilling regions and shipping lanes next summer, a researcher said on Friday.
Global warming could be one cause of the break of the Ayles Ice Shelf at Ellesmere Island, which occurred in the summer of 2005 but was only detected recently by satellite photos, said Luke Copland, assistant professor at the University of Ottawa's geography department.
It was the largest such break in nearly three decades, casting an ice floe with an area of 66km2 adrift in the Arctic Ocean, said Copland, who specializes in the study of glaciers and ice masses. Manhattan has an area of 61km2.
The mass is now 50km2 in size.
"The Arctic is all frozen up for the winter and it's stuck in the sea ice about 50km off the coast," he said.
"The risk is that next summer, as that sea ice melts, this large ice island can then move itself around off the coast and one potential path for it is to make its way westward toward the Beaufort Sea, and the Beaufort Sea is where there is lots of oil and gas exploration, oil rigs and shipping."
The break went undetected when it happened due primarily to the remoteness of the northern coast of Ellesmere island, which is only about 800km from the North Pole.
