The “Last Ice Zone” is a narrow strip of ice covering about one million square miles along the northern coasts of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic archipelago, which has long withstood the effects of climate change – until now.
A team from the University of Toronto has found that ice springs that hold frozen water together could soon collapse due to melting, resulting in large chunks of ice floating south in warmer regions.
Using satellite imagery, the researchers observed warming trends showing that ice arcs change and lose twice as much mass as the entire Arctic.
The loss of the last ice area could disrupt the entire ecosystem, including ice algae, brine channels and photogenic species such as polar bears.
Professor Kent Moore, who was involved in the study, said: “This very old ice is what worries us.”
“The hope is that this area will persist until the middle of this century or even longer. And then, hopefully, we’ll finally be able to cool the planet.
“The ice will start to grow again, and then this area can act as a kind of seed.”
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A team from the University of Toronto has found that the ice arcs that hold the last ice area together could soon collapse due to melting, resulting in large chunks of ice floating south in warmer regions.
Ice arcs usually develop at the northern and southern ends of the Nares Strait and play a major role in keeping the “last ice zone” in place.
“The Arctic Ocean is evolving into a younger, thinner and more mobile ice pack, and the fate of its ice for many years is becoming more and more interesting,” the study published in Nature Communications said.
The team used sea ice motion recoveries captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite, which allowed them to record the behavior of ice arcs and changes in the amount of ice.
They used data on ice arcs along the Nares Strait, which is 24 miles wide and 372 miles long.
Using satellite imagery, the researchers observed warming trends showing that ice arcs change and lose twice as much mass as the entire Arctic.
This area stretches between Greenland and Ellesmere Island from the Arctic Ocean to Baffin Bay.
“The last ice area loses twice as much ice as the entire Arctic,” Moore said.
“We realized that this area may not be as stable as people think.”
The data show that the duration of arc formation has decreased in the last 20 years and the mass of ice exported through the Nares Strait has increased.
“It’s really deep enough to imagine a 100-kilometer-long ice barrier that stays stationary for months,” Moore said.
“It’s more than twice as long as Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana – the world’s longest continuous bridge over the water.”
“Talk about the power of ice.”
However, the force decreases, warns Moore.
Ice arcs usually develop at the northern and southern ends of the Nares Strait and play a major role in maintaining the “last ice zone” instead.
Ice springs form only part of the year, and when spring breaks, the ice floats on the Nares Strait – but this could happen much faster than previously observed.
“Every year, the reduction in duration is about a week,” Moore said.
“It used to persist for about 200 days and now it persists for about 150 days. There is a pretty remarkable discount.
“We think it’s related to the fact that the ice is just thinner and the ice is thinner and less stable.”
A section of the last ice areas was considered a marine protected area of Tuvaijuittuq by the Canadian government in 2019.
A section of the last ice zone was considered a marine protected area of Tuvaijuittuq by the Canadian government in 2019. Tuvaijuittuq is Inuktitut for “the place where ice never melts”
Tuvaijuittuq is Inuktitut for “the place where ice never melts.”
Also last year, it was revealed that it melts twice as fast as any ice in the area.
The American Geophysical Union, an accredited organization for earth science, has released a video showing that the oldest and thickest solid ice sheet in the ocean has lost 95% of its mass in the last 35 years – which experts say it is a “dramatic indicator” of climate change.
The area is now dominated by thinner, more mobile ice, which is more susceptible to melting, which “has led to stress across the spectrum of ice-dependent organisms, from ice algae to polar bears.”
However, according to WWF-Canada, “even with effective action to limit greenhouse gas emissions, sea ice will shrink and last shorter periods in winter.”