Northwest Passage
It's been all over the news recently, but I've just stumbled across this incredible hi-res image from the European Space Agency's ENVISAT (which has been monitoring Arctic sea ice levels for nearly 30 years), showing the route of the Northwest passage (the orange line) free of sea ice for the first time in history.
According to Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre, the ice-covered area (light green in this image) is currently around 3 million sq km, which is about 1 million sq km less than the previous minimum levels recorded in 2005/6. Over the last ten years the sea ice coverage has shrunk by around 100,000 sq km per year, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is an enormous change.
"The strong reduction in just one year certainly raises flags that the ice (in summer) may disappear much sooner than expected and that we urgently need to understand better the processes involved."
September 18th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
'first time in history' is a bit misleading considering 'history' in this instance only goes back 30 years
September 19th, 2007 at 12:15 am
The satellite records go back 30 years, but records of people trying to traverse the icebound Northwest Passage go back to the 18th century. The ship Octavius tried it in 1762 and got stuck in the ice with all on board perishing, so it's fair to say that this is the first time in at least 245 years that normal ships (not icebreakers, or vessels otherwise reinforced for travelling through sea ice) can make it through…
September 19th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
And what about Amundsen?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage#Amundsen_expedition
September 19th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
[...] Ps. If interested check out this scary link: Scary [...]
September 19th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
AHHHH. First time in history? How do you explain the St. Roch, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner that traversed the Northwest Passage…three times. In the 1940s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Roch
September 19th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Sorry, just caught your bit about being "reinforced". But still, it was tiny schooner…
September 20th, 2007 at 8:03 am
[...] It would then be a nice thing to do to us (taking care of the energy, the planet and us, all included..), before this goes a bit too far… on top of disintegrating our ecosystem, the mankind (politicians, businesses… ) approach to pollution and global warming is depriving us of adventure, exploration, food for those of us still believing Man is a word to be proud of… [...]
September 20th, 2007 at 11:40 am
These people are sheep. It’s being widely reported across the news media that because of Global Warming, Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record: ABC, CNN, Wash Post Associated Press, etceteras ad nauseum. Specifically, these same news reports claim that the so-called Northwest Passage, the shortest route linking Europe with Asia, has opened for the first time. This is backed up with satellite images showing that the Arctic ice had shrunk to the lowest level on record since the agency began satellite surveillance in 1978. However, A quick Google/Lexis/Nexis check turns up that successful sea-based explorations of the Arctic dates back as far as 1903. All of these voyages can be corroborated by Canadian maritime historical records. Just a few examples will suffice:
Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer successfully navigated the Northwest Passage on August 26, 1905. This was in a wooden hulled boat with, it appears, a crew of about 10.
The Passage was also conquered several times in the 1940s by another wooden hulled vessel, the St. Roch. Built for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Force between 1929 and 1939, the St. Roch made three voyages to the Arctic. Between 1940 and 1942 St. Roch navigated the Northwest Passage, arriving in Halifax harbour on October 11, 1942. St. Roch was the second ship to make the passage, and the first to travel the passage from west to east. In 1944, St. Roch returned to Vancouver via the more northerly route of the Northwest Passage, making her run in 86 days. The Northwest Passage has been navigable by many ships, large and small, wooden hulled and metal hulled, in the past and these voyages have been well documented.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
[...] Thanks to our friend global warming, what once was an impenetrable field of certain destruction is now the Panama of the great, bitter North, practically begging seaborne vessels to glide through its dripping walls. And what Hinterpanama wants, Hinterpanama gets. You can't argue with its loyal army of penguins, polar bears and narwhal, the horned whales which are sometimes called "reamfish," and for good reason. [...]
September 20th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Andy, I'm not sure who you're calling sheep, but I'm afraid none of your examples suffice; both the St Roch and of course Amundsen's ship the Gjøa were specifically reinforced to withstand the pressure of getting stuck in sea ice, and encountered huge amounts of ice when traversing the Northwest passage.
The whole point of my post (and the current media interest) is that the Northwest passage is now ice-free for the first time in history (which, as explained in my comment above goes back at least as far as 1762).
September 21st, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Ben: Please define "ice-free". I'm not being disingenuous, but I need to know: if you are using solely satellite data, what is the resolution?
This is very much like the New York Times article of a few years ago, that said much the same thing about the North Pole being ice free…
September 21st, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I'm merely quoting from/referring to this article from the European Space Agency - http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMYTC13J6F_index_0.html
September 25th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
It should be noted that Amundsen et al also had to winter over. Not quite the same as the current situation.