Canada's last epishelf lake drained into the Arctic Ocean following the 2020 breakup of the Milne Ice Shelf and will not recover, a new study confirms.

link to open access paper https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-68201-6

Figure 6. Connection between the Milne Fiord epishelf lake and the ocean. a) Photo of the basal channel before the calving event (July 2019; photo credit: Derek Mueller). b) Photo of the basal channel after the calving event (July 2023; CC BY, photo credit: Cameron Fitzpatrick). Schematics of cross-sections across the basal channel before © and after (d) the calving event. Schematics of cross-sections along the basal channel before (e) and after (f) the calving event. In panel e, the darker ice polygon is the ice shape along the basal channel and the lighter ice rectangle is the ice shape behind (thicker with more freeboard)

  • TastySoup@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    Oof… I didn’t know what an epishelf lake was, just in case anyone else doesn’t either

    Epishelf lakes form when an ice shelf acts as a dam, trapping a layer of freshwater floating above seawater connected to the ocean. The Milne Fiord epishelf lake, located on northern Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, supported freshwater microorganisms near the surface and marine species below.

    And the article goes on to say

    “Epishelf lakes can signal when an ice shelf is under stress, and that’s what we saw here,” said co-author Dr. Bernard Laval, a professor of civil engineering at UBC who leads its environmental fluid mechanics research group. “The data showed the ice shelf was failing. Once the ice is gone, the ecosystem goes with it. There’s no coming back.”

    “Epishelf lakes are remarkable because a freshwater ecosystem sits directly above a marine one, separated only by a thin boundary between fresh water and salt water,” said co-author Dr. Andrew Hamilton, a research scientist at the University of Alberta who completed his Ph.D. research at Milne Fiord. “When the ice shelf broke apart, that unique ecological structure disappeared.”

    “These systems took thousands of years to form and were lost in months,” said Bonneau. “On any human timescale, they are not coming back.”

    Ugh. So beyond sad. I’d like to say that I hope this will be a wakeup call for folks, but if the multiple scientists’ warnings and all the other signs weren’t… sigh

    • supersquirrel@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      We think the end of the world is something that arrives all at once, but it is a series of progressively louder collapses of the way of things around us until we realize it has already arrived here and only just now its bow wake has caught up to stir us into an awareness of its presence.

      I wish we wrote obituaries for ecosystems, we sorely need them.

      • TastySoup@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        You’re so right.

        I’ve been in the same location pretty much my whole life, I can easily call out weather/species changes just in my local area from when I was a kid til today… I miss all the animals and bugs! Heh.

        It truly boggles my mind that some folks are able to turn the destruction of our planet (and our collective future) into a “belief” or an “opinion”…

        I mean, I get not trusting the govt obviously, but the scientists who are sharing fact-based information and predictions? Especially when we can see so much with our own eyes, too?! Trying not to be too much of a doomer but…

        A "two paths" meme where both paths are dark. The bottom text representing the character says "Gen X, Millenials, Gen Z" and the left path is "die in ww3" and the right path is "die cause of global warming"

        An obituary is a good idea. Even if it doesn’t sway any opinions, it could help some of us to grieve. I might try my hand at that when I’m in the right headspace. Thanks. ❤️