The Drift of Ice Island WH-5

Abstract

Summarizes the final documentation of this drift from its calving from Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, North Ellesmere Island, winter 1961-62 until sightings of the remaining fragments in waters of Labrador and Newfoundland, summer 1964. The drift south from the Arctic Ocean indicates that the southward water transport through Nares Strait is discontinuous and, during summer 1963, was interrupted by pulses of surface water to the north and the development of a sluggish counterclockwise gyre in Kane Basin. By 1964, pieces of WH-5 were widely scattered by their irregular escape from Smith Sound and the vagaries of the Baffin and Labrador current systems.