EDMONTON, Alberta (July 29) -- A chunk of ice spreading across seven square miles has broken off a Canadian ice shelf in the Arctic, scientists said Tuesday.
Derek Mueller, a research at Trent University, was careful not to blame global warming, but said it the event was consistent with the theory that the current Arctic climate isn't rebuilding ice sheets.
"We're in a different climate now," he said. "It's not conducive to regrowing them. It's a one-way process."
Mueller said the sheet broke away last week from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's far north. He said a crack in the shelf was first spotted in 2002 and a survey this spring found a network of fissures.
The sheet is the biggest piece shed by one of Canada's six ice shelves since the Ayles shelf broke loose in 2005 from the coast of Ellesmere, about 500 miles from the North Pole.
Formed by accumulating snow and freezing meltwater, ice shelves are large platforms of thick, ancient sea ice that float on the ocean's surface. Ellesmere Island was once entirely ringed by a single enormous ice shelf that broke up in the early 1900s.
At 170 square miles and 130-feet thick, the Ward Hunt shelf is the largest of those remnants. Mueller said it has been steadily declining since the 1930s.
Gary Stern, co-leader of an international research program on sea ice, said it's the same story all around the Arctic.
Plans to set up an ice camp last February had to be abandoned when usually dependable ice didn't form for the second year in a row, he said.
"Nobody on the ship is surprised anymore," Stern said. "We've been trying to get the word out for the longest time now that things are happening fast and they're going to continue to happen fast."
By David Goldman
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Renewed fears about the battered housing market and rising unemployment sent stocks into a tailspin Thursday.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 283 points, tumbling 2.4%. The Dow finished 30 points higher Wednesday as investors cheered falling oil prices despite a cautious report on the economy from the Federal Reserve.
The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index (SPX) index fell 2.3% from Wednesday's close. The Nasdaq composite index (COMP) sank 2% in Thursday trading.
The double whammy of slumping existing home sales and a jump in jobless claims renewed investor jitters that tough economic times are far from over.
That sent financial sector stocks plummeting, dragging the rest of the market down with them. With recent steep bank losses, dour economic indicators led investors to fear that the nation's lingering credit crisis would continue for the long-haul.
"Investors don't see any turn in the housing market," said Robert Philips, president and chief investment officer of Walnut Asset Management.
The subprime mortgage meltdown led to a crisis in lending and credit, the main sources of revenue for banks.
"That compounds all the issues that confront financials," Philips added.
Stocks opened mixed in the first few minutes of trading, as techs got a boost from a strong quarterly earnings report from Amazon.com, while an $8.7 billion loss from Ford Motor pressured blue chips. But stocks quickly turned much lower as the weak economic news was absorbed.
Investors will see if the economy can produce some better news Friday, as reports on durable goods orders, consumer sentiment and new home sales are due. Economists, however, expect all three indicators to weaken further Friday.
Economic woes: A report from the U.S. Labor Department showed new unemployment claims rose much more than expected last week. New applications filed for jobless benefits rose by a seasonally adjusted 34,000 to 406,000 - a level not seen since hurricanes devastated the Gulf Coast in September 2005.
"Investors are concerned over the weaker economic data that's coming through Thursday," said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist with PNC Wealth Management. "With more jobless claims, people can't pay their bills, which means more write-offs for companies."
Also driving down stocks was a report from the National Association of Realtors that showed homeowner sales fell 2.6% to a lower-than-expected 4.86 million annual rate in June. The economy has remained in a slump as home sales continue to decline, leading to a slowdown in consumer spending as American homeowners' purchasing power dries up.
Furthermore, the percentage of vacant homes available for sale in the second quarter of 2008 fell just slightly from the record high set in the first quarter, according to Census Bureau figures released Thursday.
That helped drag down shares of homebuilders, as the large inventory of homes must be sold off before contractors can profit from building new ones.
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