Study finds that hundreds of Arctic glaciers are shrinking, disappearing

An ice field in Ellesmere Island.
(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Researchers say that with temperatures rising in Canada's high Arctic, hundreds of glaciers are shrinking and many could soon vanish.

They used satellite imagery to study 1,773 glaciers on Ellesmere Island, the most northerly island in the Arctic Archipelago, and found that from 1999 to 2015, 1,353 shrank significantly, and a few disappeared completely. "What we found is a loss of three complete ice shelves," Adrienne White, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa, told The Guardian. "In terms of glaciers that terminate on land, we've lost three small ice caps." From 1948 to 2016, the annual average temperature in northern Ellesmere Island increased by 6.48 degrees Fahrenheit, one of the fastest rates of anywhere on Earth.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.