No More Ice Chunks - Please

I recently flew over the Canadian Arctic - and the views were spectacular. The pilot pointed out the rare opportunity to see Greenland and northern Canada in clear conditions. Peering out the window, there were coastlines and sheets of ice - and millions upon millions of floating icebergs. From 35,000 feet, it was a little hard to judge the size of the ice chunks. But it was possible to see the relative thickness of the sea ice and to get a sense of the total scale, which was staggering. Unfortunately, this beautiful sight has wider implications. In the past month, massive ice sheets have been breaking off an ice shelf near Ellesmere Island. The ice shelf itself is about 400 square kilometres, of which 20 square kilometres just split away. The Canadian Ice Service anticipates that still more neighbouring ice may break off... [read full story]