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Nasa images show two Canadian ice caps have disappeared
Image source, Getty Images
Scientists say the St. Patrick Bay ice caps in Canada have completely disappeared due to climate change.
The ice caps were in the Arctic Circle on Canada's Ellesmere Island but satellite pictures from Nasa show that they've now disappeared.
In 2017 a group of scientists forecast that these ice caps would melt within five years, but it has happened much sooner.
The study in 2017 found that between 1959 and 2015, the caps reduced by only five percent, but there had been an increase in the rate after warm summers in 2014 and 2015.
Image source, Bruce Raup/NSIDC
"When I first visited those ice caps, they seemed like such a permanent fixture of the landscape," says scientist Mark Serreze, who first set foot on the St. Patrick Bay ice caps back in 1982.
"We've long known that as climate change takes hold, the effects would be especially pronounced in the Arctic," said Mark. "But the death of those two little caps that I once knew so well has made climate change very personal."
Image source, Ray Bradley
The St. Patrick Bay ice caps were one-half of a group of small ice caps which are likely to have fully formed centuries ago.
The Murray and Simmons ice caps, which make up the second half of the ice caps, are at a higher point so are doing better, though scientists are worried about them as well.