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posted by
martyb
on Wednesday October 21 2015, @11:12AM
from the Henry-Hudson-was-ahead-of-his-time dept.
from the Henry-Hudson-was-ahead-of-his-time dept.
Beneath the Aurora Borealis an oil tanker glides through the night past the Coast Guard ice breaker Amundsen and vanishes into the maze of shoals and straits of the Northwest Passage, navigating waters that for millennia were frozen over this time of year.
Warming has forced a retreat of the polar ice cap, opening up a sea route through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for several months of the year.
Commander Alain Lacerte is at the helm as the vessel navigates the Queen Maud Gulf, poring over charts that date from the 1950s and making course corrections with the help of GPS.
[...] Today, taking this route cuts 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) off a trip from London to Tokyo, saving time and fuel.
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Warming Opens Famed Northwest Passage to Navigation
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(Score: 5, Informative) by gnuman on Wednesday October 21 2015, @03:39PM
It's kind of inconvenient for the AGW message, but the Northwest Passage does open up periodically.
I know it may be inconvenient for deniers, but these years, Northwest Passage opens up almost every year. And there is less ice then ever before.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ice-seaice.shtml [noaa.gov]
Also, as you may have guessed from the NOAA link, the Northeast passage has been ice free for many many years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Passage#Ice-free_navigation [wikipedia.org]
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/detection-images/climate-ice-seaice-extent-trend-sep14.png [noaa.gov] -- don't know, seems like a trend to me.
And from your own link,
September 17, 2007
The famed Northwest Passage—a direct shipping route from Europe to Asia across the Arctic Ocean—is ice free for the first time since satellite records began in 1978, scientists reported Friday.
Seems that getting a ship to pass behind a big icebreaker is not the same as ice-free. These days, you tend to get ice free. And in near future, "what ice?" conditions will be almost guaranteed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2015, @04:59PM
Forget facts, he is obviously a true believer.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by dboz87 on Wednesday October 21 2015, @08:33PM
http://www.vancouvermaritimemuseum.com/permanent-exhibit/st-roch-national-historic-site [vancouvermaritimemuseum.com]Here is the link about the St. Roch (a wooden ship) making the passage in the 1940s.