Recent satellite image take on by NASA have revealed some alarming developments in the Arctic , twoice capsin Nunavut , Canada , have completely evaporate away . The St Patrick Bay icing capital had been quickly contract for several decades , and were notably absent from photographs fill by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer ( ASTER ) on July 14 .
Located on the Hazen Plateau of Ellesmere Island , the St Patrick Bay ice caps were the depicted object of a study in the journalThe Cryosphereback in 2017 , which highlight the rapid rate at which they were wince . The study compare vertical aerial photographs of the methamphetamine caps taken over a 60 - year period , let on how they covered an expanse of 7.48 square kilometer ( 2.8 straight mi ) and 2.93 square km ( 1.1 square miles ) severally back in 1959 . By 2015 , however , they had each shrunk to just 5 per centum of this sizing .
National Snow and Ice Data Center ( NSIDC ) director Mark Serreze , who author the report , predicted that the ice cap could disappear all within five year , and the later satellite images confirm the accuracy of this grim forecast .
“ We ’ve long know that as clime change take hold , the effects would be especially pronounced in the Arctic , ” said Serreze in astatement .
“ When I first visited those ice roof , they seemed like such a permanent fixture of the landscape painting . To watch them die in less than 40 year just blows me away . ”
The fade of the St Patrick Bay ice detonator is due toincreasing global temperatures , which is largely being drive by homo - induced climate change . It ’s well document that theArctic is evaporate doubly as fastas the rest of the world . Between 2000 and 2015 , modal temperatures in Ellesmere Island increased by 1 ° C , and it is believed that a significant proportion of the recent melting go on during the particularly warm summertime of 2015 .
scientist are now interested that the Murray and Simmons chalk caps , which are also turn up on the Hazen Plateau , could before long suffer a similar fate . Because they pose at a higher EL than St Patrick Bay , these two frappe caps have been thaw at a obtuse pace , yet if temperatures in the Arctic continue to arise then these and many other Methedrine chapiter could soon melt altogether .
