Arctic ice cap's 2,000-year expansion halted by warming, study finds
A study published in Science reveals that the Barnes Ice Cap in Canada was expanding for 2,000 years before human-caused global warming reversed the trend. Researchers suggest this expansion was the start of a new glaciation period that was interrupted by rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Why it matters
The findings provide physical evidence of how human activity has fundamentally altered natural climate cycles that have persisted for millennia.
A new study suggests that the Arctic was already moving towards another glaciation nearly 2,000 years ago, before rising greenhouse gas emissions reversed the trend. Researchers found that the Barnes Ice Cap in Canada's Arctic began expanding again around that time, reaching its greatest extent in this advance around 1960. It has since retreated, reversing centuries of ice growth.Published in Science on 22 October, the study, titled Late Holocene reexpansion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, examines the last surviving remnant of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which once covered much of Canada and parts of the northern United States. The researchers argue that human-caused global warming overwhelmed the natural cooling influence of changes in Earth's orbit, halting the ice cap's expansion.
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