Melting land ice in Greeland and Antarctica

On August 13, 2005, almost the entire Ayles Ice Shelf caved from the northern edge of Ellesmere Island. This reduced the remaining ice shelves there from 6 to 5, and continues a trend of dramatic loss of these ice shelves over the past century. Since 1900, approximately 90% of the Ellesmere Island ice shelves have calved and floated away. This is a one-way process as there is insufficient new ice formation to replace the ice that has been lost, according to NASA.

The Ayles calving event was the largest in at least the last 25 years, NASA said. The largest piece that was lost was a little larger than the island of Manhattan.

This animation starts from a global view and zooms into the Ayles Ice Shelf. The region is identified by a red outline. The shelf itself is identified by two flashes of solid red before the ice shelf breakup is shown. A date/time bar shows the progression of time.

Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio