MELTING ARCTIC ICE By Carol Hand Content Consultant Edward Blanchard-Wrigglesworth Research Assistant Professor Department of Atmospheric Sciences University of Washington Essential Library An Imprint of Abdo Publishing abdopublishing com ECOLOGICAL DISASTERS
Chapter ONE HOW DO WE KNOW IT’S MELTING On July 10 1959 geologist Paul T Walker and his colleague Albert Crary were exploring a glacier on Ward Hunt Island off the coast of Ellesmere Island in far northern Canada That day Walker built a small rock cairn and wrote a letter which he enclosed in a bottle and buried under the cairn In the letter he explained that he had placed the cairn exactly 168 3 feet 51 3 m from the edge of the glacier 1 He asked Ward Hunt Island and the nearby ice shelf have provided startling examples of melting Arctic ice 5
