Editing Ellesmere Island (section)

===Glaciers, ice caps and ice shelves===
[[File:Ellesmere Island 02.jpg|thumb|left|Glaciers of southeastern Ellesmere Island, June&nbsp;1975]]
[[File:Ward Hunt Island, Ice Shelf 02.jpg|thumb|Ward Hunt Island (foreground), Ward Hunt Ice Shelf and northern Ellesmere Island (left), July 1988]][[File:Ellesmere Island 06.jpg|thumb|left|The overhanging ice front of Webber Glacier with waterfalls. Debris rich layers of the ground moraine are sheared and folded into the ice of the advancing polar glacier. The glacier front is {{cvt|6|km}} broad and up to {{cvt|40|m}} high. Borup Fiord, Grant Land, Ellesmere Island, July&nbsp;1978]]
Large portions of Ellesmere Island are covered with glaciers and ice, with Manson Icefield ({{cvt|6200|km2}}) and Sydkap ({{cvt|3700|km2}}) in the south; [[Prince of Wales Mountains|Prince of Wales Icefield]] ({{cvt|20700|km2}}) and [[Agassiz Ice Cap]] ({{cvt|21500|km2}}) along the central-east side of the island, and the Northern Ellesmere icefields ({{cvt|24400|km2}}).<ref name="Wolken"/>

The northwest coast of Ellesmere Island was covered by a massive, {{cvt|500|km}} long [[ice shelf]] until the 20th century. The Ellesmere Ice Shelf shrank by 90 per cent in the 20th century due to warming trends in the Arctic,<ref name="Revkin"/>{{r|"Vincent2001"|p=133}} particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, a period when the largest [[Iceberg|ice islands]] (the {{cvt|200|mi2|order=flip}} T1 and the {{cvt|300|sqmi|order=flip}} T2 ice islands) were formed leaving the separate [[Alfred Ernest Ice Shelf|Alfred Ernest]], Ayles, Milne, Ward Hunt, and [[Markham Ice Shelf|Markham]] Ice Shelves.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} The [[Ward Hunt Ice Shelf]], the largest remaining section of thick (>10&nbsp;m, >30&nbsp;ft{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}) [[Fast ice|landfast]] sea ice along the northern coastline of Ellesmere Island, lost almost {{cvt|600|km2}} of ice in a massive calving in 1961–1962. Five large ice islands which resulted account for 79% of the calved material.<ref name="Hattersley-Smith1963"/> It further decreased by 27% in thickness ({{cvt|13|m}}) between 1967 and 1999.<ref name="Vincent2001"/> A 1986 survey of Canadian ice shelves found that {{cvt|48|km2}} or {{cvt|3.3|km3}} of ice calved from the [[Milne Ice Shelf|Milne]] and [[Ayles Ice Shelf|Ayles]] ice shelves between 1959 and 1974.<!--not precisely true, these are the figures for ice islands created, not the ice calving. Needs rephrasing.--><ref name="Jeffries1986"/>

[[File:Osborn Range (05-08-97).jpg|thumb|The [[Osborn Range]] of the [[Arctic Cordillera]] mountain system]]
The breakup of the Ellesmere Ice Shelves has continued in the 21st century: the Ward Ice Shelf experienced a major breakup during the summer of 2002;<ref name="Nasa2004"/> the Ayles Ice Shelf calved entirely on 13&nbsp;August 2005; the largest breakoff of the ice shelf in 25 years, it may pose a threat to the oil industry in the [[Beaufort Sea]]. The piece is {{cvt|66|km2}}.<ref name="BBC2006"/> In April 2008, it was discovered that the Ward Hunt shelf was fractured, with dozens of deep, multi-faceted cracks<ref name="Weber2008"/> and in September 2008 the Markham shelf ({{cvt|50|km2}}) completely broke off to become floating [[sea ice]].<ref name="BBC2008"/>

A 2018 study measured a 5.9% reduction in area amongst 1,773 glaciers in Northern Ellesmere island in the 16-year period 1999–2015 based on satellite data. In the same period, 19 out of 27 [[ice tongue]]s disintegrated to their grounding lines and ice shelves suffered a 42% loss in surface area.<ref name="White2018"/>