The melting of the ancient ice caps is a result of climate change.
Ice caps in Canada made during what was known as “the little Ice Age,” approximately 5,000 years ago, have melted. Images from NASA show the ice caps had disappeared completely, in a development experts were not predicting to occur for at least two years.
"To watch them die in less than 40 years just blows me away," Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told CBS News.
He first visited the ice caps in St. Patrick Bay in 1982 for research purposes and said “they seemed like such a permanent fixture of the landscape.”
While scientists say that other ice caps in the area are "faring better," the note their "demise is imminent as well."
The melting of the ancient ice caps is a result of climate change.
"We've long known that as climate change takes hold, the effects would be especially pronounced in the Arctic," Serreze said. "But the death of those two little caps that I once knew so well has made climate change very personal. All that's left are some photographs and a lot of memories."
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