Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Scientists Shocked as Arctic Polar Route Revealed

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Sep 21, 2006 03:24 AM
from the no-more-pesky-ice dept.
Science
Paladin144 writes "A route unencumbered by perennial sea ice leading directly to the North Pole has been revealed by recent satellite pictures. European scientists indicated their shock as they noted a ship could sail from Europe's northern-most outpost directly to the pole, something that hasn't been possible during most of recorded human history. The rapid thawing of the perennial sea ice has political implications as the U.S., Canada, Russia and the EU jockey for control of the newly opened passages."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Melting Arctic Ice Has Consequences 466 comments
OriginalArlen writes to tell us about some compelling global warming coverage in the Washington Post. First there is an article about a study indicating that melting Arctic ice is threatening polar bears with extinction. The article quotes an environmentalist: "This study is the smoking gun. Skeptics, polluting industries and President Bush can't run away from this one." And the polar melting is opening new shipping lanes. The second article details a trip late in October through the Northwest Passage by a Canadian icebreaker. Never before in history could this trip have been accomplished so late in the year; ice would have choked off the passage. Estimates of when the passage might be navigable by commercial shipping range from 2020 to the end of the century. The indigeneous people are not looking forward to this development.
[+] Arctic Ice May Melt By 2040 474 comments
Dekortage writes in with a new study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggesting that the North Pole may be clear of ice in summer as soon as 2040, decades earlier than previously thought. From the article: "'As the ice retreats, the ocean transports more heat to the Arctic and the open water absorbs more sunlight, further accelerating the rate of warming and leading to the loss of more ice,' Holland said in the statement. 'This is a positive feedback loop with dramatic implications for the entire Arctic.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Scientists Shocked as Arctic Polar Route Revealed 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Is it just me (Score:4, Funny)

    by kongit (758125) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:27AM (#16151994)
    Is it just me or is the world cracking up?

    What was the joke?

  • pr0n (Score:4, Funny)

    by macadamia_harold (947445) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:27AM (#16151995) Homepage
    European scientists indicated their shock as they noted a ship could sail from Europe's northern-most outpost directly to the pole, something that hasn't been possible during most of recorded human history.

    Now look, I've seen quite a few movies where they go straight to the pole. No dialogue, nothing. Seriously.

  • strategic paradigm shift... (Score:4, Funny)

    by pedantic bore (740196) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:32AM (#16152014)
    Without the polar ice cap, where are the missle subs going to hide?

    • Re:strategic paradigm shift... (Score:5, Funny)

      by syousef (465911) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:51AM (#16152066) Journal
      Screw that! What about Santa!? I want my pressies damnit!

      • Re:strategic paradigm shift... (Score:5, Informative)

        by JohnWiney (656829) on Thursday September 21 2006, @07:57AM (#16152724)
        You've obviously never watched snow melt on your front lawn, or stood on a melting glacier.

        First, the pack ice is full of cracks and crevices, so "rivers" would disappear into them. The ice melts preferentially on the north side of these cracks and ridges, the side facing the sun.

        Second, when ice melts in the sun, it tends to form "pinacles" of crunchy ice (presumably a result of variations in the surface resulting in shadows, surface dirt capturing more heat, etc.) Water melts at top, and runs down or falls down into the ice. The heat of the water, and to some degree the kinetic energy of the drops, melts some of the ice further down. If the layer is thick enough, the water forms small pools and re-feezes, thus forming the dense ice that "normally" lasts all year; if enough melts, a hole forms and the water disappears into the sea (or, on land, forms rivers that flow out from the bottom of the glacier.)

        Melting from the bottom also obviously has a significant effect, since much of the sea water is obviously warmer than the ice. There is "normally" a state of equilibrium, with water melting at about the same rate snow falls on top, averaged over a few years. Right now, more is melting than freezing.

  • trade with russia (Score:5, Interesting)

    by suzerain (245705) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:34AM (#16152021) Homepage

    I would think this will open up lots of new trade opportunities between Russia and North America. I don't know what that could mean, but it is certainly interesting. What kind of manufacturing prowess does Russia have that has been heretofore underutilized because they could not as efficiently get goods to North American ports? Or is this all a bunch of hooey?

    (I thought of this because I remember reading this article about Pat Broe [commondreams.org], which may or may not have been slashdotted, but it is about an investor in the Canadian port of Churchill, Manitoba, which could well profit from an opened northern passage.)

    By the way, I live in Manhattan, and I think it's about time to move...to some city somewhere that's 20 or 30 miles inland.

      • Re:trade with russia (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rainer_d (115765) on Thursday September 21 2006, @05:06AM (#16152257) Homepage
        > Melting of the North polar ice cap makes no difference to sea levels.

        Indeed.
        Unfortunately, Greenland's ice glaciers are also melting, the island is getting greener every year. *That* ice cap does matter.

      • Re:trade with russia (Score:5, Informative)

        by Qzukk (229616) on Thursday September 21 2006, @08:21AM (#16152842) Journal
        makes no difference to sea levels.

        EVERY time this comes up I have to debunk this stuff.

        Do you understand why things float in water? Because the mass of water they displace is equal to the mass of the thing floating.

        So now you have very dense saltwater, and much less dense freshwater ice (do you understand why ice is freshwater? It forces the salt out as the surface freezes, so the saltwater below it is even saltier and denser [frostburg.edu]) If you have 1kg of ice, it displaces 1kg of saltwater. Simple enough right? Now let's hit it with the math.

        Density of fresh water at 0C [simetric.co.uk]: 999.9 kg/m^3
        Density of ice at 0C: 915.0 kg/m^3
        Density of Ocean [hypertextbook.com]: We'll take 1020kg/m^3, the minimum on the site, even though at the pole due to the salt concentration noted in the first link the density of the saltwater will be way higher, but any density over 999.9kg/m^3 means that the water level shall rise as I show below:

        1 cubic meter of ice (915.0 kg) displaces 915.0kg of saltwater. 915.0kg of saltwater is 0.897m^3 (915kg/(1020kg/m^3)), which means that our 1m^3 of ice has .103m^3 above the surface of the water (so says the old sailor's adage of icebergs being 9/10ths below water).

        Now, let's say the ice were to suddenly vanish. There would be a "hole" in the ocean with 0.897m^3 of air in it. Water would of course rush into the "hole" and the water level would drop by 0.897m^3 spread out over the entire surface of the ocean.

        But let's say the ice were to melt. Our 915kg of ice would become 915kg of fresh water, which would occupy about 0.915m^3 (915kg/(999.9kg/m^3)). The hole the ice occupied previously was only 0.897m^3 large, which leaves us with .018m^3 more water than we began with. This .018m^3 would spread out over the surface of the ocean, raising the water level ever so slightly. (sorry, your "no difference" myth has just been busted.)

        Don't forget that this tiny amount will be joined by water running off of Greenland, Antartica and other polar landmasses with ice on them, 100% of which will raise the water level.

          • Re:Arctic melting (Score:5, Funny)

            by Del Vach (449393) on Thursday September 21 2006, @09:29AM (#16153301)
            What the hell? This is the INTERNET, nobody concedes a point! Challenge his math, mock his sentence structure, insult his mother, threaten to have your lawyer contact him... without enough flames the tubes may cool!

  • Where are the sat images? (Score:4, Informative)

    by phatvw (996438) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:44AM (#16152046)
    I did a Google search for other articles on this topic, and nobody has the actual satellite images, just a bunch of lame pictures of *small* icebergs from 2003? I can just see all the Al Gore propaganda jokes tomorrow...

    But seriously if you're going to write an article at least post the images. Even Discovery Channel didn't have a good image and they are usually all about the pictures!

  • Polemic (Score:5, Funny)

    by ian_mackereth (889101) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:53AM (#16152077) Journal
    We'll know that global warming has really taken hold when there's a clear-water path to the South Pole!

  • Propaganda in 3, 2, 1... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zaydana (729943) on Thursday September 21 2006, @04:24AM (#16152144)
    Shhhh.... don't tell the big polluters about this. Soon enough we're going to be hearing about the benefits of global warming and how it is creating more jobs and empowering the consumer, or something else equally as true.

  • Don't forget... (Score:5, Funny)

    by hyfe (641811) on Thursday September 21 2006, @04:36AM (#16152175)
    U.S., Canada, Russia and the EU
    Not to mention, Norway!

    Too small to mention, heh? I'll let you know we've never lost a single war against Russia nor the U.S... and we seriously intend to keep the record perfect!

    • Re:Don't forget... (Score:5, Funny)

      by myowntrueself (607117) on Thursday September 21 2006, @05:13AM (#16152276)
      A people who can actually *eat* lutefisk need fear no invaders...

      (My theory on lutefisk is that it originates from an ancient Viking recipe for cleaning dried blood from weapons and armor... then one day a bored and drunken Nord tried eating it and didn't die)

  • For those wishing to see the .. (Score:4, Informative)

    by OneSmartFellow (716217) on Thursday September 21 2006, @05:19AM (#16152283)
    at least one of the farging photos - albeit a bit touched up - here it is
    http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/envisat/ASAR-A MSR_2006_H.jpg [esa.int]
    The non-red area near the pole (indicated by the black circle in the middle of the photo) is the concern, since it represents pack ice (and water) rather than solid ice

  • Priorities?!?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timberwolf0122 (872207) on Thursday September 21 2006, @05:41AM (#16152339) Journal
    So a huge fuck-off crack appears in the pole and the first response is not hey! how do we fix it, no, it's hey I want dibbs on trade routes.

    This! This! is why I want to vote communist!

      • Re:Shocking? Not really... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by arivanov (12034) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:43AM (#16152042) Homepage
        Depends where you are. In the US - warming. In Europe - chilling as the gulfstream is supposed to stop. The forecast for UK is 9C lower average temperature and 15C lower minimum temperature during the winter. Considering the build quality of the average british house...

        • Re:Shocking? Not really... (Score:5, Funny)

          by slysithesuperspy (919764) on Thursday September 21 2006, @05:55AM (#16152375) Homepage
          In fact, we build our houses out of bricks, while Americans rebuild their wooden houses every year after the hurricane season!

            • Re:Shocking? Not really... (Score:4, Interesting)

              by rjstanford (69735) on Thursday September 21 2006, @08:22AM (#16152845) Homepage Journal
              You may have been joking, but as far as I know Americans are pretty much unique in their desire to build a stick-frame house and glue a thin layer of brick onto the outside. When we moved here from England in 1984 it actually took quite a while for our realtor to make us understand that no, in fact, none of the houses we were looking at were actually "brick" houses. In England, when you have a brick house, its a real brick house made with real structural bricks.

              Of course, in the US, everyone's totally chuffed if you live in a "historic" house. You know, like one from the 1920s.

    • Re:Language and assumption troubles (Score:5, Funny)

      by violet16 (700870) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:52AM (#16152068)
      Oh yeah, in geological terms, human history is less than the blink of an eye. With fossils unearthed recently showing _tropical_ weather in Northern Canada, I think it's safe to say that the Arctic ice cap is a temporary feature.

      I think it's safe to say that humankind is a temporary feature.

    • Re:Language and assumption troubles (Score:5, Informative)

      by arivanov (12034) on Thursday September 21 2006, @03:56AM (#16152085) Homepage
      "something that hasn't been possible during most of recorded human history."

      This is not quite correct. There is an object in the Arctic ocean which is known as the "Great Siberian Polynya". It is a wide space of open water which is usually open even in mid-winter and starts somewhere in the middle of the icefields above the east end of the Barents sea and goes east-north-east from there. Its actual position and size varies year on year. While it has never been all the way to the north pole its north-eastern edge in some years has been only a few hundred kilometers away from it. Enough for a conventional icebreaker or even a reinforced ship to try to make a break for it. Similarly its south-western edge in some years has been very close to the open waters of the Barents (though not as far west as Spitzbergen).

      By the way, Russians have considered using this phenomenon for shipping in the soviet times and even did a few trial runs of convoys lead by Arctica class icebreakers through it (you still have to get to the Polynya and back from it across the ice fields). They abandoned it at the end. While it proved possible to run shipping in the ocean even in midwinter the shipments could not be moved further inland due to the lack of powerfull enough river icebreakers. The project was postponed till the first nuclear river icebreakers come on line. These were complete at about the time when the Soviet union fell apart and at that point nobody cared about centrally operated and organised super-shipping so they are sitting in Murmansk collecting rust.

    • Re:Language and assumption troubles (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LarsWestergren (9033) on Thursday September 21 2006, @04:04AM (#16152103) Homepage Journal
      There was technology throughout most of human history that recorded Arctic ice cover? Until aircraft, nuclear submarines, nuclear icebreakers, and satellites were invented, nobody was able to say with certainty whether the Northwest Passage existed or not, which was previously the domain of people like Henry Hudson. Indeed, until the technology existed, nobody could really map the icepack with any decent accuracy.

      We can extract ice cores and easily date the layers.

      The rest of your post is just "it may have happened before" handwaving. Ok, but it hasn't happened in a LONG time, the rate of change is unprecedented, and the possible economical consequences are enormous.

      • Re:Language and assumption troubles (Score:4, Informative)

        by bmo (77928) on Thursday September 21 2006, @05:19AM (#16152282)
        "We can extract ice cores and easily date the layers."

        No, actually, we can't. You're thinking _ANTARCTIC_ ice layers, not Arctic. Arctic ice is _sea ice_ and as sea ice, it melts and refreezes and it _moves_ all over the damn place.

        Arctic sea ice oscillates twice a day.

        "Contrary to historical observations, sea ice in the high Arctic undergoes very small, back and forth movements twice a day, even in the dead of winter. It was once believed ice deformation at such a scale was almost non-existent."

        http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2004/107.cfm [nasa.gov]

        And there are larger circulations at work, too.

        http://nsidc.org/seaice/processes/circulation.html [nsidc.org]

        And ice cores? The ice at the Arctic was 9 feet thick _at its thickest parts_ back in 1958. Just where are you going to get ice cores?

        "http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl9935.html"

        "the rate of change is unprecedented"

        Prove it. You just pulled that statement _right out of your behind_.

        The rate is unprecedented, because _nobody has measured it before_. We've only been measuring since 1958. We don't know if this is a long term cycle or not. There's _not enough data_. Using your thought process, the "Little Ice Age" was "unprecedented"
          too, and were that happening today, you'd be screaming about how we're all going to die because we'll all freeze to death.

        I stand by my statements, as they're backed up by fact. Your post, however, certainly _is_ handwaving.

        --
        BMO

        • Re:Language and assumption troubles (Score:5, Informative)

          by LarsWestergren (9033) on Thursday September 21 2006, @06:01AM (#16152382) Homepage Journal
          You're thinking _ANTARCTIC_ ice layers, not Arctic. Arctic ice is _sea ice_ and as sea ice, it melts and refreezes and it _moves_ all over the damn place.

          You are right, I was thinking of Antarctic ice, sloppy of me. However, there are other ways. We can for instance find geological evidence from lake bed sediment cores [guardian.co.uk].

          And ice cores? The ice at the Arctic was 9 feet thick _at its thickest parts_ back in 1958. Just where are you going to get ice cores?

          Greenland [bbc.co.uk], for instance. I know they are not the same, but as an indicator of the climate of the area it is an indicator, right?

          We can't prove that cracks that these haven't happened before, I agree, but we can prove with some pretty good evidence that the north pole hasn't gone through this amount of change recently (within a couple of hundred thousand years). Even before this latest evidence came, many scientists were warning that the north pole could disappear completely during northern hemisphere summertime before the end of this century. And this is something that hasn't happened for along time. See for instance polar bears [polarbears...tional.org] who need sea ice to hunt for seals. They evolved probably around 200 000 years ago.

          Even the Economist, who have been global warming deniers for years recently admitted that global warming was real and was going to have severe environemental and economic impact [economist.com]. You don't find this alarming?

    • Re:Language and assumption troubles (Score:5, Funny)

      by clickclickdrone (964164) on Thursday September 21 2006, @04:31AM (#16152162) Homepage
      >1. So it happened earlier in recorded human history?
      >2. There was technology throughout most of human history that recorded Arctic ice cover?
      Haven't you heard of diaries?
      Mar 4th 1437
      Still cold and boring. Caught breakfast. Fish again. Went for a walk to warm up. Noticed a bit of a crack in the ice and followed that for a while. Bumped into a big pole sticking out the ground. WTF? Some gnarly guy nearby said 'That'll be the North one, sonny.' Maybe someone hammered the pole in too hard and it cracked the ice? Walked back home. Fish for supper.

      If that's not evidence, I don't know what is.

    • Re:Language and assumption troubles (Score:4, Informative)

      by devonbowen (231626) on Thursday September 21 2006, @05:10AM (#16152267) Homepage
      With fossils unearthed recently showing _tropical_ weather in Northern Canada, I think it's safe to say that the Arctic ice cap is a temporary feature.

      You do realize that continents move around, right? Plate techtonics and all that. Canada, for example, used to be on the equator.

      Devon

    • Re:Language and assumption troubles (Score:4, Informative)

      by ninewands (105734) on Thursday September 21 2006, @06:35AM (#16152454)
      Quoth the poster:
      Oh yeah, in geological terms, human history is less than the blink of an eye.

      True.

      With fossils unearthed recently showing _tropical_ weather in Northern Canada, I think it's safe to say that the Arctic ice cap is a temporary feature.

      Regarding tropical weather in Northern Canada ... think plate tectonics and continental drift ... there used to be tropical weather in what is now northern Ellesmere Island because that patch of land was on the equator in Devonian times. :P

      It would be more accurate to say that ice-free poles are a very transient feature of earth. IIRC, earth's orbit is pretty far out in the sun's liquid water zone and ice ages are more common than warm stages in our climatic history.

    • Re:Look on the bright side (Score:5, Funny)

      by Opportunist (166417) on Thursday September 21 2006, @04:01AM (#16152101)
      You mean we'll be spared of a Titanic 2? Hooray for global warming!

    • Re:Look on the bright side (Score:4, Informative)

      by kestasjk (933987) on Thursday September 21 2006, @05:10AM (#16152266) Homepage
      On the contrary; the melting of polar ice means more iceburgs end up detached from the rest.

    • Re:Look on the bright side (Score:5, Informative)

      by ultranova (717540) on Thursday September 21 2006, @05:28AM (#16152302)

      There won't be as many icebergs for ships to run into.

      Actually there will likely be more.

      Warmer water will weaken the edge of the polar icecap, causing it to splinter into icebergs more easily; at the same time, having open water nearer the pole means increased rainfall, which in turn means more ice formation. The circulation of water gets faster with more energy in the system; and iceberg formation is a part of that circulation, so it will intensify as well.

      And of course Atlantic storms will get worse too, the rising sealevel will drown out port towns, and the drying farmland means that sailors will starve to death before boarding the ships. Doom and gloom, man, doom and gloom.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.