Ice Shelf Breaking

Via wired.com another Artic ice-shelf has broken off.

Another huge chunk of Canadian ice has broken from the its island anchor and is now adrift in the Arctic ocean.

This time it was the Markham Ice Shelf, previously located along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, which was an important habitat for ice-loving microbial life.

"There are so many major changes, it almost boggles the mind when you look at how fast this region is changing," said Derek Mueller, who studies the ice shelves at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. "We're entering into a new reality if this keeps continuing."

At 19-square miles, about the size of Manhattan, the Markham ice chunk sounds big, but it's a relative piker in the scheme of ice shelf calvings. In 2005, a 25-square mile ice shelf took off into the Arctic. And just earlier this year, the Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf lost a 160 square-mile chunk of ice.