Hundreds of Arctic glaciers shrinking, disappearing into 'city of icebergs,' study says

The statistics in her recently published paper say it all:hundreds of glaciers in Canada's High Arctic are shrinking and manyare likely to disappear completely.

But for Adrienne White, seven field seasons along the northernreaches of Ellesmere Island give the numbers real-world immediacy.

They all retreated. Nothing is growing.- Adrienne White, University of Ottawa glaciologist

"I've been actually able to see with my own eyes, to the pointwhere there were some areas I couldn't recognize between years,"said White, a University of Ottawa glaciologist.

"One year you'reSki-Dooingover the ridges of these iceshelves, and then you go back the year after and [it's]like a city of icebergs."

• Stranded fox rescued from iceberg by fishermen who fed him Vienna sausages
• North Pole thaws mid-winter as temperatures smash records in the Arctic

White has catalogued and studied the condition of more than 1,700glaciers on the High Arctic island, both on the ground and fromsatellite imagery. She looked at glaciers on land and flowing intothe ocean as well as at ice shelves floating on top of the sea.

Out of 1,773 glaciers, 1,353 shrank significantly between 2000and 2016. All of them shrank a little bit, said White.

"What I saw when I was measuring was 100 per cent of glaciersretreating," she said. "They all retreated. Nothing is growing."

White found glaciers lost more than 1,700 square kilometres.That's a loss of almost six per cent over a period of 16 years.

Most of these glaciers probably aren't coming back.

• Where are all the 'bergs? Tour operators say iceberg sightings in N.L. down this year so far

Glaciers not accumulating snow

The Canadian Arctic is experiencing some of the fastest climate warming anywhere on Earth. The annual average temperature onEllesmere Island has increased by 3.6 degrees.

Data from other points in the Arctic suggest rising temperaturesmean the elevation needed for snow to last through the summer hasrisen by 300 metres.

• The Arctic just had its warmest winter on record

White found most of Ellesmere's glaciers are no longer highenough to accumulate snow.

"I don't see snow surviving throughout the summer," she said."You need that year-long snow to be able to accumulate and createmore ice and I just don't see that.

"Over 50 per cent of the glaciers are completely in the ablationzone, [where]100 per cent of the glacier area is undergoing melt.No part of that glacier is creating more ice."

White's work echoes earlier research that found Ellesmere'sglaciers began shrinking several decades before her study began.

• Mass die-off of Antarctic penguin chicks alarms researchers

Although she's not able to say whether that retreat is speeding up, the rate of warming is increasing.

Until the mid-1990s, the average temperature climbed about 0.12degrees per decade. From 1995 to 2016, the increase was 0.78 degreesper decade.

It's hard to say what the consequences of shrinking glaciers willbe, said White. There will be some impact on sea-level rise and themelting ice is likely to release more and larger icebergs into thewater, she said.

Little is known about the area, which is so remote that untilrecently it couldn't even be found on Google Earth. One thing iscertain, though, said White.

"It is a big change."

• MORE NORTH NEWS |Mackenzie River caused global cooling 13,000 years ago, study suggests
• MORE NORTH NEWS |Suffering Yukon dentist forced to drill his own tooth