COLLAPSE OF THE LAST CANADIAN ARCTIC

 GLACIER PLATFORM

This platform belonged to the Milne Ice Shelf, located on Ellesmere Island in the sparsely populated territory of Nunavut, which has now lost 43% of its area, or 80 km2.

By comparison, Manhattan Island, New York, covers approximately 60 km2. "It was the largest ice shelf still intact"

The rupture was caused by "higher than normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf," the ECCC said on Twitter.

“It was the largest ice shelf still intact, and it disintegrated,” said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa.

Ice shelves, or ice barriers, are pack ice (frozen seawater) on which glaciers are established, formed of compacted snow. By breaking up, these ice floes give rise to flat icebergs.

In the Arctic, the area covered by ice has declined by about 13% per decade over the past 40 years.