19-square-mile ice sheet breaks loose in Canada by Paulina Neshybova

In the northern Arctic of Canada on Wednesday, a big piece of ice sheet has broken away from the llesmere Island and it is about the size of Manhattan. According to scientist this is another prove of the changing climate in polar areas due to warming of our planet.

It is called The Markham Ice Shelf as told Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario to The Associated Press. It is about 4,500 year glacier which began to seperate in the first days of August. It disappared unexpectedly in the cloudy wather. And when it was clear again, the researches sae there was suddenly no more ice shelf.
Of course it is not good news, becuase it indicates the rapidity of weather climate changes.
Another expert Luke Copland, director of the Laboratory for Cryospheric Research at the University of Ottawa thinks that this event is important for showing that the remaining ice shelfs are going to disintegrate in coming years. These shlef are really importatnt as the are a combination of ancient sea ice made by accumulating of snow and melting water. They create a rare ecosystem which will be now on the brink of extinciton as they re depnded on them. However, the situation is really bad, For thousand of year the climate kept the glaciers in balance, but now , as the earth is warming this process is irreversible and there is no hope for recover. They were homes for cold microbial life and The Markham Ice Shelf presented a half of the biomass for the entire Canadian Arctic. Now the balance is crashed.
Now they should make tougher requirements for incoming ships to this area.


related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080904/ap_on_sc/arctic_ice_shelf;_ylt=Asz3nqCL4YOsd2w5BMGatKis0NUE

by Paulina Neshybova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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edited by Beata Biskova