The Devon Ice Cap is an

ice cap In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets. Description Ice caps are not constrained by topographical featu ...

on eastern

Devon Island Devon Island ( iu, ᑕᓪᓗᕈᑎᑦ, ) is an island in Canada and the largest uninhabited island (no permanent residents) in the world. It is located in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is one of the largest members of the ...

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

, Canada, covering an area of over . The highest point on Devon Island is found at the summit of the ice cap, with an elevation of . The ice cap has a maximum thickness of , and has been steadily shrinking since 1985. The first ascent of the Devon Ice Cap was by Alfred Herbert Joy and his Inuit companions in 1926.

Geology

The Devon Ice Cap and the Agassiz Ice Cap on the neighboring

Ellesmere Island Ellesmere Island ( iu, script=Latn, Umingmak Nuna, lit=land of muskoxen; french: île d'Ellesmere) is Canada's northernmost and third largest island, and the tenth largest in the world. It comprises an area of , slightly smaller than Great Bri ...

are two of the largest ice caps in the

Arctic Cordillera The Arctic Cordillera is a terrestrial ecozone in northern Canada characterized by a vast, deeply dissected chain of mountain ranges extending along the northeastern flank of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from Ellesmere Island to the northea ...

in the Canadian Arctic, and consist of a substantial fraction of ice not locked away in the

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and o ...

and

Greenland ice sheet The Greenland ice sheet ( da, Grønlands indlandsis, kl, Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering , roughly near 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is sometimes referred to as an ice cap, or under the term ''inland ice'', or its Danish equ ...

s. As such, should the entire Devon Ice Cap melt due to global warming, the ice will contribute approximately 1 centimeter to global

sea level rise Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...

. The Devon Ice Cap has a dome-like structure and a maximum elevation of 1921 m above sea level at its summit, and the maximum ice thickness is 880 m. There are two distinct regions in the Devon Ice Cap: a ice cap and a ice-covered region in the west that is geologically inactive. Beneath the ice, two hypersaline subglacial lakes have been identified via RES in bedrock troughs. Subglacial valleys have also been found, and such structures are thought to control the outflow of ice.

References

External links

"Devon Ice Cap" on ''Mountain-forecast.com''
Ice caps of Canada Bodies of ice of Qikiqtaaluk Region Arctic Cordillera Devon Island {{canada-glacier-stub

Geology

See also

References

External links