Two little Arctic ice caps that Mark Serreze studied as a graduate student in the early 1980s might not have been as grand and dramatic as other features of our planet's cryosphere, but to him they nonetheless were quite special.
Were quite special — past tense — because Serreze, who now directs the National Snow and Ice Data Center, has confirmed that the two ice caps on the Hazen Plateau of Canada's Ellsmere Island have disappeared. They're the victims of human-caused warming that has occurred three times more rapidly in the Arctic than anywhere else.
The disappearance was confirmed using recent images from the ASTER instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.
The top image, acquired by the ASTER instrument aboard the Terra satellite, shows the St. Patrick Bay ice caps in 2015. The bottom image, acquired by the same instrument in 2020, shows that they're gone. (Credit: NSIDC)
NSIDC
“When I ...
