The Milne Ice Shelf, a fragment of the former

Ellesmere Ice Shelf The Ellesmere Ice Shelf was the largest ice shelf in the Arctic, encompassing about of the north coast of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. The ice shelf was first documented by the British Arctic Expedition of 1875–76, in which Lieutenant Pel ...

, is located in the

Qikiqtaaluk Region The Qikiqtaaluk Region, Qikiqtani Region (Inuktitut syllabics: ᕿᑭᖅᑖᓗᒃ ) or Baffin Region is the easternmost, northernmost, and southernmost administrative region of Nunavut, Canada. Qikiqtaaluk is the traditional Inuktitut name f ...

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...

, Canada. It is the second largest

ice shelf An ice shelf is a large floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are only found in Antarctica, Greenland, Northern Canada, and the Russian Arctic. The b ...

in the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

. Situated on the north-west coast of

Ellesmere Island Ellesmere Island ( iu, script=Latn, Umingmak Nuna, lit=land of muskoxen; french: île d'Ellesmere) is Canada's northernmost and List of Canadian islands by area, third largest island, and the List of islands by area, tenth largest in the world. ...

, it is about west of

Alert, Nunavut Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada, is the northernmost continuously inhabited place in the world, ("Twice a year, the military resupply Alert, the world's northernmost settlement.") on Ellesmere Island (Queen Elizabeth Island ...

. In 1986, the ice shelf had an area of about , with a central thickness of . It had been the last ice shelf in the

Canadian Arctic Northern Canada, colloquially the North or the Territories, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories and N ...

to be fully intact until July 2020, when over 40 percent of the sheet collapsed within two days, a consequence of

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. An uninhabited research camp was lost when the shelf collapsed. It included instruments for measuring water flow through the ice shelf.

References

Ice shelves of Qikiqtaaluk Region {{QikiqtaalukNU-geo-stub