Reply #1: Additional - Breakup Of Ice Shelf Signals Climate Change, Scientists Say

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By Andrew C. Revkin
New York Times, September 22, 2003

"A large ice shelf that has jutted into the Arctic Ocean from the northernmost part of Canada for at least 3,000 years has broken up over the last two years, providing evidence that the region is warming past thresholds that can produce abrupt changes, scientists said today. The scientists, from Laval University in Quebec and the University of Alaska - Fairbanks, described the changes in a paper published in the current issue of Geophysical Review Letters.

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They said it was not yet possible to say if the melting was related to rising atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activity. But the authors said the breakup was just one of many signs confirming that the Arctic is seeing enormous climate shifts that merit careful monitoring.

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The 150-square-mile region of floating ice, called the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had formed a cap across the mouth of the 20-mile-long Disraeli Fjord on Ellesmere Island, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

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The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is up to 100 feet thick - far more massive than the 10-foot-thick slabs of floating sea ice that form a milling cap on the Arctic Ocean."

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NYT