The Penny Ice Cap, formerly Penny Icecap, is a

ice cap In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets. Description By definition, ice caps are not constrained by topogra ...

in Auyuittuq National Park of

Baffin Island Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada, the second-largest island in the Americas (behind Greenland), and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is (slightly smal ...

Nunavut Nunavut is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the Nunavut Land Claims Agr ...

, Canada. It forms a high barrier on the Cumberland Peninsula, an area of deep

fjord In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the n ...

s and glaciated valleys. It is a remnant of the Laurentide ice sheet. During the mid-1990s, Canadian researchers studied the glacier's patterns of freezing and thawing over centuries by drilling

ice core An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier ...

samples. The ice cap has been thinning and its valley glaciers have been retreating in recent decades related to rising summer and winter air temperatures across the eastern

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

.C. Zdanowicz et al.: Summer melt rates on Penny Ice Cap, Baffin Island: Past and recent trends, and implications for regional climate
/ref> The ice cap is named after Captain

William Penny Captain William Penny (1809–1892) was a Scottish shipmaster, whaler and Arctic explorer. He undertook the first maritime search for the ships of Sir John Franklin. In 1840, Penny established the first whaling station in the Cumberland Sound a ...

, a

whaling Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...

captain from Aberdeen in Scotland who pioneered over-wintering with native

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

at Cumberland Sound in order to be able to start whaling (in the 19th century) much earlier in the season. He was also engaged by Lady Franklin to search for John Franklin, lost with all his crew in the search for the Northwest Passage.

References

Bodies of ice of Baffin Island Arctic Cordillera Ice caps of Canada {{canada-glacier-stub

See also

References