---
title: "Sudden Reversal in Canadian Ice Cap Growth Alarms Scientists"
url: https://newscentral.site/sudden-reversal-in-canadian-ice-cap-growth-alarms-scientists/
language: en
publisher: "News Central Site"
section: "Technology"
published: 2026-10-22T18:00:00.000Z
updated: 2026-10-22T18:36:09.363Z
id: 2a591a4d-a0a3-4548-a693-4291cd45f21c
source: "Wired https://www.wired.com/story/ice-age-beginning-then-humans-started-burning-fossil-fuels/"
attribution: "Link to https://newscentral.site/sudden-reversal-in-canadian-ice-cap-growth-alarms-scientists/ and name News Central Site when you quote or summarize this story."
---

# Sudden Reversal in Canadian Ice Cap Growth Alarms Scientists

A sudden reversal in the growth of the Barnes Ice Cap in Canada has scientists sounding alarm bells about the impact of human activities on the planet's climate.

A sudden reversal in the growth of a Canadian ice cap has scientists sounding alarm bells about the impact of human activities on the planet's climate.

The Barnes Ice Cap, which covers parts of Baffin Island in Canada, began expanding several thousand years ago before rapidly shrinking starting from the 1960s as greenhouse gas emissions rose.

According to experts, the damage was done even before emissions reached their peak, causing significant retreat of the North American ice sheet.

This phenomenon is not new; the Earth's climate goes through cycles where ice advances and recedes due to natural changes in its rotation and orbit, known as Milankovitch Cycles.

The last ice age ended 12,000 years ago, leaving behind a legacy of vast ice sheets that once covered much of North America.

The researchers used an exposure dating technique to determine when the glacier reached its modern size. This method involved calculating how long rocks near the glacier's edge had been exposed to the sky by measuring the amount of Beryllium-10 present on their surface.

The calculations revealed that the ice sheet first attained its current dimensions approximately 3,600 years ago. The scientists then sought to understand how much the glacier had regrown since this point in time.

To accomplish this, they turned their attention to the mosses and lichen growing in front of the glacier. These plants are capable of colonizing newly exposed land once ice has retreated, leaving behind a record of their presence when the area is re-covered by ice.

The preserved remains of these dead mosses provide a valuable timeline of the ice's movement across the landscape, allowing Young and his team to reconstruct how the glacier has expanded over time.

The glacier's growth slowed down significantly after 1960, defying expectations of another ice age.

Historic aerial photos reveal a stark reversal in the ice cap's expansion, showing it retreating from its new margins at an alarming rate.

Since the 1980s, the Barnes Ice Cap's edges have been receding by approximately 4 meters per year on average.

This dramatic shift coincides with a period of rapidly increasing carbon emissions, which has led to widespread ice retreat globally.

The reversal is particularly striking given the glacier's 2,000-year history of net expansion prior to the 1960s.

The study's findings are significant because they validate a long-held hypothesis about the onset of an ice age in the 1970s. This hypothesis was initially met with skepticism by some climate deniers, who used it as evidence to claim that global warming was not real.

However, recent research suggests that the opposite is true - humans' increased burning of fossil fuels has actually prevented a new ice age from occurring. In fact, scientists at a 1970s meeting at Brown University were so concerned about an impending glaciation that they sent a warning letter to President Richard Nixon.

The irony of this situation is not lost on researchers, who point out that the media coverage of the meeting and the colder weather in the 1970s have been misused by climate deniers as "proof" that global warming is not happening.

---
Source: [Wired](https://www.wired.com/story/ice-age-beginning-then-humans-started-burning-fossil-fuels/)  
Published by News Central Site: https://newscentral.site/sudden-reversal-in-canadian-ice-cap-growth-alarms-scientists/