Canadian Ice Shelves Halve In Six Years

eldavojohn writes "The CBC reports on new research that shows thousand-year-old ice shelves (much different than sea ice) are breaking up and have been reduced by half in a region of Canada over the last six years. 'This summer alone saw the Serson ice shelf almost completely disappear and the Ward Hunt shelf split in half. The ice loss equals about three billion tonnes, or about 500 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza.' More detailed pictures can be seen at The Conversation, with a quote from Professor Steven Sherwood, Co-Director of the University of NSW's Climate Change Research Centre: 'The real significance of this, in my view, is that this ice has reportedly been there for thousands of years. The same is true of glaciers that have recently disappeared in the Andes. These observations should dispel in one fell swoop any notion that recent global warming could be natural.'"

Comments

Re:what do Canada's growing glaciers prove?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Other glaciers in Canada are *growing* (an inconvenient truth), like Helm, Pace and on Mount Logan. In one swoop, this proves......

I like it when people post references for their claims.
I tried to verify yours on my own and was not successful.

The claim that Helm Glacier is growing seems to be out right false.

The claim about Mount Logan seem to be based on an increase in height - the assumption being that it's due to ice accumulation, but that does not translate one way or the other to the total mass of the glacier, just the thickness at one point.

I couldn't easily find what "Pace" refers to since the word "pace," as in speed, is commonly used with the word "glacier" so I couldn't verify your claim either way.