Penny Ice Cap
| Penny Ice Cap | |
|---|---|
The Penny Ice Cap
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| Type | Icecap |
| Location | Nunavut, Canada |
| Coordinates | 67°15′N 66°00′W / 67.250°N 66.000°WCoordinates: 67°15′N 66°00′W / 67.250°N 66.000°W |
| Terminus | outflow glaciers |
The Penny Ice Cap is a 6,000 km2 (2,300 sq mi) ice cap in Auyuittuq National Park of Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. It forms a 2,000 m (6,562 ft) high barrier on the Cumberland Peninsula, an area of deep fiords and glaciated valleys. It is a remnant of the last ice age. During the mid-1990s, Canadian researchers studied the glacier's patterns of freezing and thawing over centuries by drilling ice core 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 ice cap is named after Captain William Penny, a whaling captain from Aberdeen in Scotland who pioneered over-wintering with native Inuit at Cumberland Sound in order to be able to start whaling (in the nineteenth century) much earlier in the season. He was also engaged by Lady Franklin to search for her husband John, lost with all souls in the search for the North West Passage.
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