Ellesmere Island
- Terra MODIS
- 13 August 2005
- 00:55 UTC
Third largest and most northerly of Canada's Arctic islands, Ellesmere
Island lies within the Queen Elizabeth Islands group, located in the high Arctic zone some 800 km south from the geographic North
Pole. The island lies off the northwestern coast of Greenland (at top-right in the above image), from which it is separated by the
lengthy Nares Strait. The strait comprises several named bodies of water: (from north to south)
Robeson Channel (up to 29 km in width), Kennedy Channel (up to 32 km in width), Kane Basin (up to 130 km in width), Smith Sound and
Baffin Bay — ultimately linking Baffin Bay with the Lincoln Sea region of the Arctic Ocean. Besides Greenland, Ellesmere
has two other very large immediate neighbours: Devon Island to the south, across the Jones Sound, and
Axel Heiberg Island to the west, across the narrow Nansen and
Eureka sounds.
With maximum dimensions of 870 km (north to south) and 430 km (east to west) Ellesmere Island covers an area of 196,236 km², ranking it as the tenth largest island on Earth. The Arctic Cordillera mountain chain that runs along the fringes of the Canadian Arctic from Labrador through Baffin Island and Devon Island covers much of Ellesmere Island, making it the most mountainous of all the Arctic Islands. There are several main ranges, with the highest peaks occurring in the British Empire Range in the northeast: 2,616 m at Barbeau Peak — the highest point in the Canadian Arctic zone — and to 2,500 m at Mt. Whisler. The coastline of Ellesmere Island is equally dramatic, being indented with many impressive fjords and inlets, including those such as the Greely Fiord and Baumann Fiord — both located on the central west coast.
Ellesmere Island is also the most glaciated of all Canada's Arctic islands, with some 80,000 km² of the land buried beneath permanent ice caps and glaciers. There are five main ice caps: the Prince of Wales Ice Cap, the Sydkap Ice Cap, the North Ellesmere Ice Cap, the Manson Ice Cap, and the Agassiz Ice Cap (17,326 km²). The northern coastline is locked by the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf — the largest ice shelf in the Arctic. In recent times, however, the ice shelf has begun to break up into a series of smaller units — thought to be the result of rising temperatures in the Arctic.
image: MODIS rapid response project at nasa/goddard space flight center.
