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How do icebergs from Ellesmere Island travel through the Arctic Ocean?
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iceberg
Tourist boat in front of a massive iceberg near the coast of Greenland.
Ice islands, which are the Arctic equivalent of tabular icebergs, originate from the ice shelves of Ellesmere Island, such as the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf.1
Once these ice islands calve, they enter the Beaufort Gyre, a clockwise-rotating current system within the Arctic Ocean. While caught in this system, they may complete several circuits of the Canada Basin. Eventually, these ice islands exit the Arctic Ocean by drifting through the Fram Strait, the passage located between Svalbard and Greenland.1