Comments on: Ward Hunt Ice Shelf Stratigraphy

By: Ward Hunt Island: Unprecedented since 2005 « Climate Audit

Ward Hunt Island: Unprecedented since 2005 « Climate Audit — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:15:54 +0000

[...] Island Ice Shelves Ellesmere Island Driftwood Ayles Ice Shelf Ward Hunt Ice Shelf Stratigraphy Ice Island [...]

By: Arctic in the Holocene, narwhals and all that | Watts Up With That?

Arctic in the Holocene, narwhals and all that | Watts Up With That? — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:43:43 +0000

[...] Steve McIntyre brought up some interesting questions several years ago, and has raised the issue several other times. Other indirect evidence of less ice in the Holocene, and one of my favorites, is given by the discovery of a narwhal tusk, on the northwest coast of Ellesmere Island, that was radiocarbon dated at 6,830 ± 50 B.P. From the abstract of “An early Holocene narwhal tusk from the Canadian high Arctic” we can read: [...]

By: a reader

a reader — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:32:41 +0000

A nice resource for info on ice islands is Arctic Magazine at AINA website, U of Calgary. See these issues for articles icluding ones by Crary mentioned by Mr. McIntyre above:

July 1952
Oct. 1952
Dec. 1952
Dec. 1953
Vol. 11 #1 1958
March 1960

Moira Dunbar did a section in the first article on historic references to “Paleochrystic” ice and whether this might not be ice islands. Greeley mentions “rolling ice” which appears to be similar to the T islands.

By: Dave Dardinger

Dave Dardinger — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:13:31 +0000

Re: Hu McCulloch (Aug 13 10:55), Well, from 1962 to 2001 is 48 years, or close enough to a half century not to matter very much. If the writer had said "in 50 years" or "in over half a century", it might be worth complaining about. I suppose the "of observation" is worth complaining about as it implies that observation in the arctic only began about 50 years ago, which is not correct.

By: Hu McCulloch

Hu McCulloch — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:55:56 +0000

According to an AP Story by Charles L Hanley in the 8/13 Columbus OH Dispatch, “Climate Predictions Ringing True”
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2010/08/13/climate-predictions-ringing-true.html?sid=101 ,

“Researchers last week spotted that a 100-square-mile chunk of ice had calved off from the great Petermann Glacier in Greenland’s far northwest. It was the largest ice island to break away in the Arctic in a half-century of observation.”

Yet according to the 8/6 UDel press release quoted 8/6 on WUWT (“Oh No, ..”), the nearby Ward Hunt Ice Shelf calved off a 230 square mile berg during the 1962 breakup discussed here by Steve.

AP should hire a fact checker!

By: Steve Sadlov

Steve Sadlov — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:17:44 +0000

RE: #3 – Ah yes, the start is always the worst with these expeditions – getting past the jumbled mess in the litoral and out onto the (relatively, pressure ridges notwithstanding,) smoother offshore ice:

“For a couple of hours we skied along the level shoreline of Ward Hunt Island. All too soon, the realities of arctic pack ice hit home. Ice boulders were piled up chaotically. The weight of our sledges seemed steadily to increase as the day drew on.

“After several hours struggle, we had traveled just over a kilometer. Willingly, we pitched camp for the night on a small but level ice plate, amidst a chaotic sea of pack ice. Day gave way to night at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. We dug out our head-lamps, pitched camp, cooked diner and went to bed.

All is well with the Expedition.”

I think that due to general characteristics of currents and winds, the Canadian shore is typically worse than the Russian shore. But the drift seems to favor starting on the Canadian side ever so slightly.

By: JP

JP — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:09:53 +0000

Here are some pictures of the Ward Hunt Island taken last spring.

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 04:41:52 +0000

I’m not sure that you’re reading the image right, but you’ve got a point relative to the following image. The after picture below seems to me to be similar to the map above in the portion from Ward Hunt Island to the east. Both the map and the lower image border the ice rise to the north of the island. It looks to me like the ice shelf that broke off in 1961-1962 (which was post-ablation) stayed off. However, it looks very much to me like the pat of the ice shelf shown in the figure below as “missing section” accreted since the 1971 geological map and thus the disappearance of this “missing section” is unprecedented only for thirrrrrr-ty years.

By: Jeff Weffer

Jeff Weffer — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 01:14:29 +0000

I’be been going back and forth between this graphic (yes Steve, geologists do it better) and the other satellite pictures linked below and the McClintock Fjord above has no ice in 1971 but it has rebuilt outward by the satellite pictures of 2001 to 2006. The ice break line of 1961-62 on the Ward ice shelf either did not calve off or was rebuilt by 2001 to 2006.

If you look close enough at all the images/graphics, it looks like the shelves rebuild, calve off, rebuild etc. as one would expect in a STABLE/REBUILD-CALVE ice shelf scenario.

The Ward and Ayles ice shelf calving are nothing out of the ordinary.