Impassable Northwest Passage Open For First Time In History

An anonymous reader writes "The Northwest Passage, a normally ice-locked shortcut between Europe and Asia, is now passable for the first time in recorded history reports the European Space Agency. Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said in the article: 'We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3 million sq km which is about 1 million sq km less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006. There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq km per year on average, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is extreme.'"

Won't be long

[Dachannien]

I'm sure the Northwest Passage Cruise Line vacation scam spams will begin soon.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, Bush already beat you to that with sabre rattling. [canada.com] Nobody "tours" Iraq other than troops, do they?

Re:Won't be long

[Dachannien]

I thought Russia owned the whole damn thing.

Re:Won't be long

[Carewolf]

Of course he disagrees. The Northwest Passage is danish sovereignty. The Canadians just doesn't know how to read maps.

Time to buy

[downix]

that prime waterfront property in Kansas....

Re:

[CaroKann]

Forget Kansas. There is prime waterfront property to buy on the north shore of Canada, Alaska, and Russia. In fact, I predict the melting of the artic ice will lead to a resource gold rush by the nations bordering the artic. It will change the whole geopolitical landscape as much as, if not more than, the rise of China's economy.

Re:Time to buy

[RockDoctor]

There is prime waterfront property to buy on the north shore of Canada, Alaska, and Russia. In fact, I predict the melting of the artic ice will lead to a resource gold rush by the nations bordering the artic

Not in any great hurry ; in theory, the opening of the Arctic Ocean could make development and/ or extraction of minerals somewhat cheaper in the immediate coastal regions. But once you're more than a few tens of miles from the coast, then you're going to find that the costs of building rail lines or pipelines (depending on if you're talking about minerals or oil) gets up to the level where it's just as cheap in the long run to go overland with rail. And that's not going to be a quick option. Then again, building port facilities isn't quick either, particularly if you've got no port to bring the building materials for building your port.

Huh.

[Anonymous Coward]

What could cause this?

Re:Huh.

[Anonymous Coward]

IRAQ!

Re:Huh.

[Foobar of Borg]

IRAQ!

Of course. Where else do you think Saddam Hussein hid the Weapons of Mass Destruction? He had to hide them in the artic, where we would least expect them. He was fiendishly clever, that Saddam.

Years of Study: ~30

[WED Fan]

Well, considering the years of study of the Northwest Passage are in the 30's, I'm sure someone will get a little hyperbolic with their rhetoric.

it's 1550 AD in your alternate universe?

[rubycodez]

Explorers looked for northwest passage from 1400s to 1900, mapping the artic area. in 1906 Roald Amunsen navigated the passage in an ice-fortified ship. Been done with other such ships since then.

Re:it's 1550 AD in your alternate universe?

[at_18]

Explorers looked for northwest passage from 1400s to 1900

And didn't found it.

in 1906 Roald Amunsen navigated the passage in an ice-fortified ship

Funny that it took him two years [wikipedia.org] (mostly spent with his ship blocked by ice) and several dogsleds. That's not my idea of "passage".

By years of study in the 30s

[benhocking]

Are you referring to the 1530s and Hernán Cortés? You're jumping the gun a little — it wasn't until 1576 that Martin Frobisher first tried to find the Northwest Passage. Of course, you could be referring to the 1630s as several attempts were made after this to find this passage that did not exist. Perhaps (but surely not) you're conflating the (prior lack of) existence of the Northwest Passage with the satellite record — which only stretches back about 30 years or so. Still, we know that the Northwest Passage has not been passable for well over 400 years.

Now, sarcasm aside, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't agree with the scientific consensus on global warming. You no doubt extol the virtues of having an open mind and being skeptical. Has it occurred to you that the scientists are just as likely to have underestimated our impact as to overestimated it? In fact, evidence suggests that, being the conservative people that scientists are (not in the political sense, mind you), scientists have repeatedly underestimated our impacts. That doesn't mean that certain non-scientists aren't greatly exaggerating things, but I'm guessing (again) that it's the mainstream science [wikipedia.org] view that you're taking umbrage with.

Re:

[Belial6]

Now, I'm not saying that the passage has been open in the past, but unless there was permanent observation of the passage, we certainly cannot say it has never been open. You listed many dates, but where there people their EVERY year to see if the passage was open? We are in the situation today, that we can know exactly (probably down to the hour) that the passage became clear. If the passage was also clear in 1540 through 1545, we wouldn't know it.

Obviously, this is something to watch, but by makin

Slightly misunderstanding the story

[benhocking]

He didn't sail it in 1905, he traversed it (through various means) between 1903 and 1905. It was not an open passage, however.

And that the Vikings were sailing it sometime between 1200 and 1500 A.D.

Now that's a new one! Do you mean they reached Newfoundland (not news, I think most historians believe this) or that there's "evidence" that they traversed the NW Passage to Asia? If the latter, I'd suggest you use your skeptics eye with respect to that "evidence".

Re:Slightly misunderstanding the story

[Snocone]

Well, Ben, there's nothing that rises to the level of courtroom proof in the way of evidence excavated yet no, but the concept is not exactly new.

Basically, the Haida band, who are the indigenous First Nation of Haida Gwaii (the archipelago which you non-PC foreigners are probably more familar with as "the Queen Charlotte Islands") display such a number of cultural similarities to the Norsemen that many reasonable people find it less of a stretch to presume that there was contact between them than to assume a remarkable cascade of coincidences. Let us take an example, boat design.

""Yakutat," or "Northern-style" canoes include a variety of design forms, including a characteristic curve and swelling near the bow. The prow of the canoe gracefully curves up from the water and can be adorned by elaborate carvings."
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/expeditions/treasure_fossil/Treasures/Haida_Canoe/canoe.gif [amnh.org]

Now, contrary to the learned discourse above, these are not actually characteristic of Haida design. There is one other culture that designed its ocean-going vessels with those same "characteristic" traits. Care to guess what that culture was?
http://www.geocities.com/dragar.geo/WSP/Pix/longship.gif [geocities.com]

Those are just the first two images Google search came up with for each; if you look into it further, you'll find that the similarities are more striking than those two make apparent. Striking enough that when Haida/Tlingit take their canoes on cultural exchanges to Europe, they constantly get questions along the lines of "why did you make a longship out of a single tree trunk and paint it funny?", as Europeans just assume that the design is a conscious imitation of the Norse, not their own.

Also, the Haida are physiologically distinct, rather dramatically so in fact, from every other American aboriginal culture; they are taller, whiter, grow facial hair, and produce significant quantities of brunettes and redheads.

"Marchand also described the Haidas of Queen Charlotte Islands whom he visited in 1791. He found them not differing materially in stature from Europeans, better proportioned and better formed than the Sitkans and without the gloomy and wild look of the latter. Their color he found did not differ from that of Frenchmen, and several were less swarthy "than the inhabitants of our country places' (Edward L. Keithahn, MONUMENTS IN CEDAR: The Authentic Story of the Totem Pole, Bonanza books, New York 1971:19-23, emphases supplied)."

This is not consistent with Haida mixing with Asian genetic pools, or any other Western North American genetic pool, or hell any other race bordering the entire Pacific for that matter. On the other hand, this is remarkably suggestive of significant admixture with a Scandinavian genetic pool, yes?

Anyhoo, if you'd like to look further into the theory that the "Vinland" of the sagas is actually British Columbia, specifically the Cowichan Valley of Vancouver Island, here's a page for you:

http://www.spirasolaris.ca/sbb4g1ev.html [spirasolaris.ca]

Actually living in British Columbia, I can attest to the plausibility of all the little details. The one that really struck me was his identification of the Oregon grape with the always-problematic 'grapes' of the sagas. As pointed out on this page, the presentation in the sagas does seem facially invalid:

"As for the grapes in the Sagas, James Robert Enterline wrote in VIKING AMERICA (1972):
In the Saga of Eirik the Red, after Thorhall the Hunter went off by himself, some writers have inferred that he found grapes and ate of them, becoming intoxicated, for he was discovered on a steep crag where:" he lay gazing up into the air with wide-open mouth and nostrils, scratching and pincing himself and muttering something ."
The corresp

Re:

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Also, A quick google shows that Roald Amundsen sailed it in 1905? Or am I misunderstanding the story?

You are misunderstanding, TFA you linked to said he spent two winters with dogsleds traversing the NW passage. Kinda the opposite meaning of what you implied. Or as you said, "...by making clearly untrue statements, fuel is given to those that are skeptical."

Right, with *icebreakers*

[benhocking]

Requiring an icebreaker to get through means that the passage wasn't really open (not that you're disputing that, but some on this thread can't quite seem to grasp the difference here).

Re:By years of study in the 30s

[TapeCutter]

From TFA: "Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said: "We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3 million sq km which is about 1 million sq km less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006. There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq km per year on average, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is extreme."

Last year was a record low for ice coverage, a quarter of what was left of the ice cap last year dissapeared this year, how extreme do you want it?

BTW: I entirely agree with the GP, the IPCC reports by their very nature are conservative in their estimates, but they are also by their very nature are the best representation of the current state of scientific knowledge. I think in time the IPCC will move toward the (depressing) picture drawn by people such as Hansen [wikipedia.org], Lovelock [jameslovelock.org], Attenborough [wikipedia.org] and many others.

Re:Huh.

[OriginalArlen]

Hey, why not ask a climatologist [nasa.gov] (or six)? That's an excellent paper. If you've heard the "skeptic" canard along the lines of "but the temperature in teh historical proxy records starts rising before the CO2 starts to increase" -- which is completely correct - please take the trouble to read and understand the description of the albedo-flip feedback cycle. That's right, this means that things are much worse than the IPCC thinks.

No, wait, he's a crank. He works for that hotbed of liberal tree-huggers, NASA!

Here's the National Snow and Ice Data Center's latest map of Arctic sea-ice extent [nsidc.org] (w/e 10th September 2007), showing the average extent from 1980-2000 at this time of year. (context and the latest data will be here tomorrow. [nsidc.org].) This will be updating tomorrow (Monday) afternoon with the latest week's data. Normally sea-ice reaches it's minimum extent at the end of September, so we're not at the bottom of the 2007 season yet.

Final one for the depressingly high number of skeptic loonies and ignoramuses who always come out of the wordwork on these stories: are you really saying that George Bush and Arnold Schwartzenegger are both suckers who have fallen for bad silence peddled by some sort of environmentalist illuminati? really? Cos even Dubya has now officially accepted the basic, uncontroversial amongst actual scientists, IPCC-version models are accurate (and this is anthropogenic warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions). You did know that didn't you?

What do you know, that Dubya doesn't?

Roald Amundsen

[imaginaryelf]

The Northwest passage was first traversed in 1903 by that famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. This was no small feat given the technology available at the turn of the century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen [wikipedia.org]

Winston Smith

[Nymz]

Thanks for reporting that untruth, Winston will fix that once he returns. - Ministry of Global Warming

Re:Winston Smith

[mce]

Nobody claimed that Amundsen has not done it back then. The claim is that the passage now is practicable in one go, because the whole passage is open. Amundsen needed several years to make it all the way through in bits and pieces. And he couldn't have done it in any larger ship than the one he used, due to the water water being as shallow as 3 feet. Not exactly an economically viable solution.

Right, but not in a regular ship

[benhocking]

Read that article carefully to see exactly how he "traversed" the Northwest Passage [wikipedia.org]. It wasn't open then, and hasn't been for at least 400 years (and probably an awful lot longer) — until now.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I'd take those odds

[benhocking]

If there was anyway to definitely prove it. We don't know anything about the entire passage prior to 400 years ago, but people have been interested in trying to find a way through continuously since then. If the passage in the last 400 years was ever as wide as it is now, it would have been easily spotted. Have you seen [bbc.co.uk] the satellite pictures? Here's a source [nsidc.org] that has a history for this summer.

If the ice melts and there's nobody on the beach

[fm6]

Actually, there's a lot of evidence (ice core samples and such) that the arctic hasn't been warm enough for a passage to form for at least 100,000 years.

The scary thing is that losing the polar ice cap has effects way beyond creating a new shipping route. All that ice reflects a lot of heat back into space. It's one of many effects (methane outgassing from melting Siberian tundra; carbon released when drought causes forests to burn) that create a positive feedback look in the global warming trend. In theory

Re:If the ice melts and there's nobody on the beac

[TapeCutter]

"It was a whole lot warmer in the last interglacial, 120kya...balh, blah, blah"

It's not the temprature itself that people are concerned about (go back 250MYA and CO2 concentrations were 4X what they are now and the planet was 10C warmer. It's the unprecedented rate of change that is "unatural" and a "clear and present danger".

The melting of the North pole was predicted and it is now undeniably occuring, one of the predicted "flow on effects" of an ice free Artic ocean is desertification of midwest US ( modern humanity's "breadbasket"). Perhaps you would be happy to return to foraging for grubs and shellfish or hearding goats in an arid wasteland (re: middle east), me - I'm kinda fond of the idea of growing our staple diet in a predictable and sustainable manner. If you think discussing the possiblity of a global famine is hyperbowl then take a good look at what is happening to SE Australia (where I happen to live), if you prefer history then take a look at the "dustbowl" years in the US or the many cases where ancient civilizations crumbled due to rapidly changing environmental conditions. Not to mention global fisheries have been collapsing like dominoes since the 1980's....opps - I just did.

Currently the Artic is predicted to be ice free in 40-50yrs so (according to predictions) the US still has a while before it "dries up", but this year's data (to quote TFA) was "extreme". I have no idea what a 25% reduction from last years record low does to the statistical trend or the predictions of when (no longer "if") the Artic will become ice free in the summer. However using the figures from TFA, if the next three years are as "extreme" as this one then the ice will have receded into oblivion before kyoto even comes up for renewal in 2012.

"It's no mystery."

It is a huge mystery but it's not a total mystery thanks to thousands of scientists who have been very actively working on the broarder question of the "dynamic stablity" of the biosphere in general and climate in particular. Thanks to this large but much maligned group of boffins there have been huge strides in our knowledge over the last three decades (including the sources for your "facts"). Yet when the consensus predictions of these "grant seeking leaches" start occuring in front of our very eyes at a much more alarming rate there are still those who will brush it all aside with some self-serving babble about our distant ancestors who had not even developed language let alone a global econmy and infrastructure that is TOTALLY dependent on the predictability of annual weather patterns (ie:climate). Arguing about the exact definition of an "open" as it pertains to the N.W. passage is the preverbial arranging of deck chairs.

Disclaimer: Sorry to pick on you personally, please take it as a general comment about the level of anthropogenic arrogance on slashdot regarding AGW.

Poorly worded

[richdun]

...shortcut between Europe and Asia...

A shortcut between Europe and Asia? How long will this shortcut reduce the time it takes to cross between these neighboring continents?

Yes, yes, I know, there is a great historical importance to the Northwest Passage, as the pursuit of it led to Western explorers crossing the Atlantic (more frequently than the random exile), but a bit of specificity here could go a long way - like, perhaps, a shortcut between western Europe and southeast Asia (although, I'd think th

Re:Poorly worded

[MosesJones]

Seriously, you have noticed that the world isn't flat haven't you? When planes fly they go north because that creates the shortest route (the grand circle) hence the reason that when flying to Asia the planes often go from Europe straight over the north pole. In terms of mileage this is a massive change (think multiples not percentages) over the existing routes and is the reason why the EU and US are already pushing for it to be an international (rather than Canadian) trade route.

So yes it looks similar on Google maps, but it looks completely different on Google Earth.

Re:Poorly worded

[gEvil (beta)]

So yes it looks similar on Google maps, but it looks completely different on Google Earth.

Try Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion map [bfi.org] for an interesting view of the world...

Re:Poorly worded

[p0tat03]

... massive change (think multiples not percentages) over the existing routes and is the reason why the EU and US are already pushing for it to be an international (rather than Canadian) trade route.

And why should Canada's sovereign territory being pieced apart? If it suddenly became globally advantageous to cross shipments through most of the US, the EU and the rest of the world would be perfectly justified in making it international territory as well?

You people can just fly/ship your people/things with our blessings (and taxes), the land and airspace belongs to us.

Re:

[c6gunner]

I tried to moderate your comment "funny" but my mod points seemes to have disappeared between the time I loaded this article, and the time I hit "moderate".

Anyway: the Canadian claim on the arctic territories was never really accepted by most nations. It was simply never disputed because nobody gave a about who owned a bunch of frozen islands in the far north. Now that the ice is melting, EVERYONE is starting to care, and we Canadians, thanks to years of neglect, don't have any way of enforcing our

Re:

[WindBourne]

Europe and Africa makes heavy use of Panama canal for items coming from eastern china, russia. Now, they can send it over America/Canada and not have to pay the price, in particular, the canal currently only allows small ships through it.

OSS in trouble

[Tablizer]

Where is Linux gonna get a new mascot when their home is gone?

-1 wrong pole

       

Re:

[MichaelSmith]

-1 wrong pole

Well things are warming up in Antarctica as well. Fortunately penguins don't actually need ice, we have lots of them [wikipedia.org] here in Victoria.

whoa.

[apodyopsis]

all this global warming, freak weather and now the northwest passage is open? I'm losing my faith in coincidences here...

Re:whoa.

[The Living Fractal]

What would be coincidental about it? Yes, the world is getting warmer. Everyone agrees with that basic statement. Now tell me _why_ it's because of Mankind. We already have geological proof that the world gets hotter and colder in cycles and we are (geologically speaking) getting out of an ice age. And I want hard numbers, like "23% of global warming compared to the mean of the last decade is due to CO2 emissions from the following nations" etc.

Re:whoa.

[Kjella]

Now tell me _why_ it's because of Mankind. We already have geological proof that the world gets hotter and colder in cycles and we are (geologically speaking) getting out of an ice age.

Smoothness. Just take a look at the curves, and you'll see lots of cycles, big and small but these are changes that happen over thousands (and in some cases, millions) of years. What we see today is much bigger than "the little ice age" and the yearly variations, it goes straight up and coincides with our industrialization and CO2 emissions. Just because our ability to accurately predict say a storm center months in advance is poor, we know what normal variation is and this isn't it. You seem to want proof on the level of "beyond any reasonable doubt". Personally I think those that are willing to risk destroying the planet on the off chance that "it might not be us" are should err on the side of caution, not suicidalness. YMMV.

Re:whoa.

[theJML]

I'll have to say I agree that we're, geologically speaking, still getting out of the last ice age. We haven't started the next one yet, and there's still plenty of ice around, so you can't really say we're done with this one.
 
  You'll also notice, from your graph, that the global temp is actually lower than a number of the previous spikes (showing that as far as that graph is concerned we're NOT warming anymore). You'll also notice that while it's not going down, it's steady (which doesn't show the continuous upward trend that news sources want you to believe). You'll find in your noted graph, on the left at around 425,000 years ago there was a similar leveling, which was followed by a spike and then a drop off in temp.

Now I'm not going to say that all of our CO2 emissions are helping things, but I would like to point out that the earth was doing a fine job spiking it's own temps long before we arrived. Volcanos, changes in the Earth's orbit around (Milankovitch cycles), changes in plate techtonics, solar output and meteorites have been deciding factors before and likely will continue that way in the future. I'm assuming they don't teach this stuff in school anymore, so here's a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age [wikipedia.org].
 
I find it #1 vain of the human race to think that they're the ONLY reason why temps can change in the world, #2 to think that they're the only thing that can fix it, #3 to think that this hasn't happened before and won't happen again. Humans are but a blip in the geologic time scale.
 
  That being said, there are plenty of other reasons besides global warming to go green, we will run out of oil sooner than later, and land/water pollutants cause more harm that CO2 anyway. Let's not be so one sided and try to come up with ways to make things better for the environment as a whole instead of throwing everything towards "global warming".

Maybe, maybe not

[Jerry]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He [wikipedia.org]

"Former submarine commander Gavin Menzies in his book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World claims that several parts of Zheng's fleet explored virtually the entire globe, discovering West Africa, North and South America, Greenland, Iceland, Antarctica and Australia (except visiting Europe). Menzies also claimed that Zheng's wooden fleet passed the Arctic Ocean. However none of the citations in 1421 are from Chinese sources and scholars in China do not share Menzies's assertions."

Arctic minimum, antarctic maximum

[Anonymous Coward]

See http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ [uiuc.edu] for the details.
Swings and roundabouts.

Re:Arctic minimum, antarctic maximum

[DrSkwid]

That posting is the interesting, I useful fact to carry around.
I'm still a global warming sceptic. I'm all for reducing carbon emissions and the like. I'm just not totally convinved the weather patterns and carbon emissions are intertwined as some of the figures look.

Correlation is not causation.

Re:

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Correlation is not causation.

Correct. Longwave absorption is causation.

We know from the lab that CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths, we know from thermodynamics that the earth reradiates at those wavelengths, and we know from satellite measurements that less energy is reaching space from the surface at those wavelengths.

We also know what solar output [noaa.gov] has been doing, for the last ~30 years quite precisely.

Re:

[kmac06]

CO2 is a naturally occurring gas in significant quantities. The only way it can be considered a pollutant or undesirable by-product is if it causes global warming (my post was making a point assuming the uncertainty of this point). CO2 scrubbers are not profitable, or else power plants would already be using them to capture and sell the gas. So the economic implications of reducing the emission of CO2 (which is a by-product, not a waste) are, well, bad. Try again...

Hotter summers, cooler winters = climate change

[Via_Patrino]

Hotter summers, cooler winters = climate change

Seriously, the Antartic is cooler because southern hemisphere areas over the tropics are hotter than usual, so cooler air masses from Antartic can't go trough them and accumulate down south.

Makes me want to go there...

[Kjella]

...just so I can tell my grandkids (ok since this is slashdot, someone else's grandkids): "Yep, I was there. Just miles and miles of ice as far as the eye can see, all floating on water. 'course it's gone now, all melted away because of global warming - I hear the US just recently acknowledged it might be a possibility too."

Sovreignity rights

[Aeron65432]

Let the battle begin......Canada has already asserted complete rights to the passage, Russia and the United States want it to be international waters. It matters because this passage is incredibly lucrative for the months of the year it's open.

Re:

[phobos13013]

No, not complete rights over the whole passage; just to parts of the passage that extend into their navigable waterways. In some portions the only passable portions may be in their waterways, but not the whole passage in it's entirety. Anyway, over time, as more ice recedes, soon the entire passage will be navigable.

However, no one should be surprised about all this... It's been slowly becoming easier to make the passage over time. [bbc.co.uk]

Re:Sovreignity rights

[quacking duck]

It has the potential to be incredibly lucrative, yes.

Most of the passage indisputably passes between islands all internationally recognized as Canadian. Territorial waters [wikipedia.org] is defined as 12 nautical miles (22 km) from the land, and a quick check using Google Earth shows most of these islands are less than 44 km apart at their closest points. Once you're in the Beaufort Sea, then yeah you're in international waters.

Unfortunately the US and European countries don't have many comparably close-lying islands for comparison, but it would be like claiming the Shelikof Strait between Alaska and Kodiak Island were international waters.

The US and Europe want the passage "international" for the convenience and cost savings, which is understandable. But their wanting to make it international also means they want to strip Canada of its obligation to protect its environment--witness the callous disregard of the effects of dumping bilge oil/water [elements.nb.ca] just last year.

Obviously, Canada currently is in no position to enforce its sovereignty in the north due to its underfunded military, but that is a separate issue. The Arctic and Antarctic areas are one of the last areas on earth relatively unspoiled by human contamination, and it disgusts me that those largely responsible for screwing up the rest of the world, now want to finish the job.

Re:

[fyoder]

Aye, and I think you could probably get more Canadians behind an initiative to defend actual Canadian territory than are behind the current military effort in Afghanistan. Bring the boys 'n' girls back home to defend the actual country.

Re:

[quacking duck]

All of which is completely irrelevant under the law of the sea. If there is a way to connect to transit between international waters via territorial waters then any nation is completely within their right to make the passage under the concept of innocent passage. Ships all over the world execute this right daily in places such as the Bosporus, Straight of Hormuz, Straight of Gibraltar, Straight of Magellan, Straight of Mallacca.

All of which skirts the issue of whether or not it's Canadian territory or not in the first place. The US and others are trying to claim it's international. Claiming innocent passage is an admission that it does indeed belong to Canada.

And the US would be rather hypocritical if they use the Law of the Sea as justification for innocent passage, since they're refusing to ratify it partly because (and love the the irony here) it would compromise US sovereignty [wikipedia.org].

La la la

[Error27]

I can't hear you. La la la. Are you from some foreign country because I can't understand what you are saying.

PS. The climate is not changing. Please go about your business people.

So ...

[John Jorsett]

... naming it "The Northwest Passage" was incredible foresight?

Science is a homosexual plot

[gelfling]

To turn your virgin children into islamofascists. I'm sure I saw this on Fox. No no no a thousand times no. If Global Warming were caused by man God would have given us gills.

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a real boon to nautical industries like shipping and such. There just aren't that many ways around continents. Having an extra option is great.

 
Plus, those big ships'll have a shorter route on which to belch their nasty so-called "greenhouse gasses" (and will, therefore, not pollute as much!); this could be the best thing to happen to the environment in 30 years!!

Re:

[Foobar of Borg]

'al gore is right!' bandwagon

FYI: Al Gore is not a scientist. Please argue with respect to the studies performed in the field of Climatology and Atmospheric Science.

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[Anonymous Coward]

This laptop is powered entirely by my own sense of self-satisfaction.

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[Bluesman]

Congratulations on your Mac purchase :-)

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[IgnoramusMaximus]

If we wanted to do good things for the environment, we'd have an mostly-nuclear merchant shipping fleet by now.

You are jesting, surely.

If you had any idea about the condition of the merchant ships and the way their crews are hired, you would have never said that.

Deep sea marine merchant fleets are governed by something which can only be described as a "law of the jungle", where the disposable crews (literally! I heard stories of men simply dumped in the next harbour, regardless of location, after losing arms or legs in accidents on the ship, without any concern about their means of medical care or transportation. Insurance? You gotta be kidding!) and rust-covered ships worked until they literally fall apart at sea, after which the owner simply collects more then their value, having shrewdly adjusted the insurance payout in anticipation. Any attempts at regulation usually result in the owners re-registering all of their ships in places in which bribery, corruption and non-existant regulation make up for an "ideal" merchant shipping home port. What did you think the words "flag of convenience" mean? Ever notice that all of those ships in the news which broke up on some rocks are flying weird flags from strange places, even though they are clearly owned by western conglomerates?

Adding nuclear power to this mix would be truly suicidal.

Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...)

[IgnoramusMaximus]

*OR* the hypothetical nuclear fleet would have better hiring and maintenance practices, you dumb fuck.

Am an in awe of your grasp of the situation, specially when highlighted with such creative epithets. Now, do please explain how does this hypothetical fleet has its maintenance and hiring practices improved, given that vast majority of it is registered in, say, that bastion of high standards of regulation: Antigua, and owned by companies registered in, say, Dubai. For a bonus question: explain away your method of forcing the merchants to use the astronomically expensive (in relation to everything else) nuclear reactors followed by your gracing us with your enlightening views on the methods of securing the nuclear fuel and the ships themselves from falling into the hands of some bearded and beturbaned individuals with somewhat antisocial attitudes.

Seriously, you just blindly grafted on an aspect of reality onto a hypothetical alternative. How pig shit stupid can you get?

I am reeling under the assault of your great wit, so cleverly based upon words of "shit" and "pig". As to being blindly "grafted" on an aspect of reality, I am afraid I got you beat there, since your entire rant consists of "hypothetical" hot air, which does not even withstand most cursory of "hypothetical" searches for traces of common sense.

Re:

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Am an ...

I swear /. does some weird things to my posts sometimes after I hit Submit! That was supposed to read "I am". Oh well.

Re:

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Actually, having the Chinese, as well as all other nations, being well off frightens only the proponents of "globalization" (who are usually some variants of "conservative" these days - although any greed blinded individual will do) which hypocritically, depends on vast inequalities which can be exploited for profit.

Wealth and responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

The answer of course is to enable other nations to grow sustainable economies, centered around local products and services.

"Globalization"

Re:

[bytesex]

That's not entirely true; globalization _does_ strive to level the economic playing field and certain areas of the world _are_ simply more suitable to do certain things with than others. It makes great sense to designate places of the world for certain types of production, given climate and presence of ore.

Re:

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Well that sounds good in theory, but it is not true in practice.

What actually happens is that as the living standards of the "target" of the products are very rapidly lowered (attendant with creation of astronomical and unsecured debt) and the living standards of the source are slowly (as slowly as one can manage as a matter of fact, as this reduces profits) raised. When that fails, the "source" is moved to yet another poor country, and the previous one simply abandoned. Ask those border-factory Mexicans,

Re:Cool!

[ozmanjusri]

it's a real boon to nautical industries like shipping and such.

...and the new midwest passage will be a real boon for shipping stuff to Minneapolis too.

"Mediterranean hit by iceberg!"

[Scrameustache]

I'm sure that the global warming hysteria will try to make this look like a bad thing, but it's a real boon to nautical industries like shipping and such. There just aren't that many ways around continents. Having an extra option is great.

The Exxon Valdez supertanker was towed to San Diego, arriving on July 10 and repairs began in July 30, 1989. Approximately 1,600 tons of steel were removed and replaced. In June 1990 the tanker, renamed SeaRiver Mediterranean, left harbor after $30 million of repairs. She has since been renamed Mediterranean, and is still sailing as of August 2007. The vessel is current owned by SeaRiver Maritime, a privately held subsidiary wholly owned by ExxonMobil

Maybe...

[Eric Damron]

Maybe it a troll because there is no -1 "Ignorant enough to kill us all" moderation available?

Re:

[erroneus]

I wish you weren't posting as Anonymous Coward but I'm sure you're not the only one who feels the way you seem to so this goes out to all those who agree with you.

I'm pretty sure that you, as an individual, have somewhere between little to nothing to say about what your government does or doesn't do. Sure, you vote, rally and protest... a lot of Americans (by that I mean people of the US just as you meant) do the same thing. But with various forms of corruption running rampant everywhere and at every leve

Re:

[Kadin2048]

For a long time I was an inner-city enthusiast and happy to not own a car and get around on public transit. Now, I'm sorta burned out on living all bunched in a crowded space. I like walking out to my small orchard of apple trees. I didn't 'sell out' to get my present circumstances, mind you. I just moved outta the city to an area of the country where the money from my two-bedroom attached townhouse (a fourplex) bought me a 100+ year old country house and 5 acres.

Agreed, and congratulations on purchasing a place. I, like many other people, are still working towards that. I live in a city, but only because that's where the big money is at the moment. I find it tiring; every day I wake up and can't wait to move to a place where I can not constantly be surrounded with other people. There's just something vaguely claustrophobia-inducing about it.

To be honest, I don't think that humanity's situation in general will really ever start looking up until the population decre

Re:

[ScrewMaster]

Because trying to get through it is a rite of passage for any competent explorer.

Re:

[PopeJM]

If its never been passable before why was it called a passage?

The early European explorers and their governments knew the importance of being the first one to find a Northwest passage if one existed. They didn't know for sure if one did exist. It's like talking about a Western route to the Indies when there isn't a direct path from Europe.

Re:

[Romancer]

Here: http://www.marine.fm/en/NWP1.htm [marine.fm]

Not too sure if it's the same exact route but it's been traveled as far back as 1903.

Yeah, look at the comment after yours

[benhocking]

That puts it in perspective. Read up on Roald Amundsen's trip [wikipedia.org] — that will help you get some perspective.

Good grief

[benhocking]

Read the story [framheim.com]. It wasn't just a matter of different technology. The passage didn't exist — he forced his way through.

Try 400 years

[benhocking]

The first attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage happened well over 400 years ago (did your school not teach this in history class?), and several attempts have been made since then. This is the first time that it's been open as far as we know — and not for a lack of looking for it. I love the uncertainty and doubt, though — perhaps you can find some fear now?

Yes, I did notice that

[benhocking]

Did you happen to notice that one of those attempts was successful in 1903?

And I've commented on it elsewhere on this thread. That trip took 3 years — there was no passage for him to travel through.

My point is that when people see a headline about the first time "in history," they aren't thinking 30 years, they are thinking 3000 years. But 30 years is all we have any good data about at all.

No, we have good data for 400 years. We have outstanding data for 30 years. And of course, whenever you say "

Re:

[El Torico]

Nice bit of sophistry there, but your reasoning is a tired, specious argument that anything less than an infinite number of observations is inadequate. Yes, the greater the number of observations, the more accurate the aggregate result, but that does not mean you discount all observations less than infinite.

Re:

[Xonstantine]

My, my, aren't we smug. That being said, you gave a reasonably decent explanation. However, there are, of course, a few problems remaining.

According to your wiki article, we have ice core samples going back 800,000 years. Not ice core samples from the Northwest Passage area, but simply ice core samples. The primary temperature proxy in ice core samples is isotopic concentration within the trapped gases. The trapped gases within an ice core sample tend to be younger than the ice itself, and can vary

Lies, Damned Lies, & Statistics

[Nymz]

I think history goes back a tiny bit further than 30 years, especially since I am older than that.

But evidence of Global Warming doesn't.

Confusing, we need better descriptors

[Nymz]

Correct, it does not. Cycles of warming and cooling independant of man's actions are in evidence.

It seems like everyone is saying the same words, but meaning different things. So to clarify 'independant of man's actions' would be Non-Anthroprogenic Global Warming, and not Al-Gore Global Warming, right?

Re:

[j00r0m4nc3r]

I guess you are a prehistoric old fossil

You can't prove THAT

[NotQuiteReal]

You said I am God.

I don't think so.

God and I were having bacon cheese burgers at Hooters the other day, and He told me He doesn't have a Slashdot account. Why would He lie to me?

Then I told him a ribald joke that He hadn't heard before, and he snorted milkshake out his nose.

Re:

[benhocking]

Like how the sea waters haven't risen near as much as originally projected, or how the total temperature isn't a high as it was said to be by now? Or would it be using faulty math to make you think that the 90's were the hottest years on record in the last century that conveniently skips over the 30's.

IIRC, the sea waters have risen more than originally projected (which, ironically, has been used by skeptics to poke holes in the theories) as have the temperatures. And faulty math would be arguing that the

Re:

[Planesdragon]

You mean impossible.

Alice

No, Alice, they mean "impassible". It's a real word, it means something other than "impossible." Look it up.

Re:

[Jane Q. Public]

It might be a good idea to get your facts straight before commenting.

Yes, some glaciers are shrinking. But some that have been CLAIMED to be shrinking have actually been growing. And other glaciers are growing, as well.

Yes, the earth has been warming. But it has been warming pretty steadily for the last 6,000 years, and it has been warmer in the past -- even during recorded history -- than it is now. And even though it is getting warmer, there is actually very little evidence that WE have been causing

You need to get your fact correct

[Anonymous Coward]

The blue is growing. White is neutral. All else is shrinking. Notice the LARGE amount of Brown. [wikipedia.org] Just out of curiosity, what has been CLAIMED to be shrinking, but is growing? And do you have some real links, say science mag?

As to you saying that there is little cause for alarm, I would like some links from those in the know. Or are you just BSing like many others here?

Yes, I do

[benhocking]

Do you really think it is paranoia Ashlie?

Yes, yes I do. I made a lot of posts on a topic that I care about and know a bit about. That they might be disproportionately directed to you could be because you meet the criteria of being (a) wrong about quite a bit, but (b) not loony wrong. (I tend not to waste my time with true crazies.)

But since I would have to Google for "global warming y2k bug" to find the articles, I will just leave it up to you to do so.

Well, since it wasn't a y2k bug, I would think su

Re:And yet

[dbIII]

Consider a glacier. It is a big mass of ice running downhill. If it is relatively small and not on a very steep slope you can assume it is not moving and when it gets warm the main thing that is occuring is melting so the glacier retreats.

Consider another glacier - a really big one with a lot of ice behind it and a large height difference and/or steep slopes. Something like this moves faster. When it gets warmer it will move faster again. These are the glaciers that are advancing.

Unfortuantely we have people that really just want to win an argument that just take the amount of advance and retreat of a lot of glaciers and average it without considering why. They are completely ignoring the temperature measurements in those locations since they are pretending to use a glacier as a thermometer instead of the real thermometers that may actually be there.

As for the warm is good argument - I recommend talking to a farmer. Whether it is a El Nino or La Nina effect in the Pacific in a paticular year is enough to drive farmers backrupt off the land in some areas - they know about warm weather in the wrong spot.

Re:

[Thanatopsis]

Wow - Science by press release. It must be true. You link to a PR News wire story authored a known right wing think tank. The "study" they did wasn't even a literature review. It simply didn't state the type of disagreement they were counting which are often minor details. You then spun this into "The jury is still out on global warming." In the words of Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon".

Re:

[cdn-programmer]

You make a good post and get intelligent responses. Yet some moderator thinks it is not politically correct and mods you a troll.

I get moderator points quite frequently and recently there are few occasions where I am not using some of them to reverse stupid moderation! Gawd moderators, Get real? Why do you want to suppress the contrarian point of view? Is it against your religeon or something?

The truth with regard to global warming is that planetary climate change is due to a number of factors and these

Re:

[arthurpaliden]

Citation Please.

Re:

[MutantEnemy]

The destruction of the habitat of polar bears is an event predicted for the future. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

Your argument is like saying that humanity has nothing to worry about, since our population has increased 300% in 80 years (source [wikipedia.org]).

Re:Misleading info on Polar Bears

[BearRanger]

This is so wrong I don't know where to begin.

Polar bears have historically required pack ice to breed and hunt. As the ice melts more and more bears drown. Their numbers are in decline. Officially they're listed as vulnerable, but I believe later this year that status will be downgraded to endangered. Hopefully they'll be able to adapt their behavior to the new, warmer conditions of the arctic. But I wouldn't expect that.

There's plenty of scientific research on this subject. Granted, Wikipedia isn't the best reference. But it will give you pointers to look further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[MBraynard]

Yes, and if you read it, you will see that since the 1970s the population has risen from 5k to 25k. This during a period of alleged global warming. Their numbers are not in decline.

No, they're different species

[benhocking]

The polar bear is Ursus maritimus and the grizzly bear is Ursus arctos horribilis. I think you're confusing the polar bear with the brown bear, Ursus arctos, of which the grizzly bear is a subspecies. There is one recorded instance of these two (distinct) species breeding in the wild, and that individual was shot and killed. It was considered quite the oddity, if you recall the story.

No, recorded history is over 400 years here

[benhocking]

Try reading up on the history of the Northwest Passage. Sure, we've only had a complete meter by meter map for 30ish years, but we've known about the lack of a Northwest Passage for centuries.

Re:

[MichaelSmith]

then why do some people say the sea levels will rise to such high levels?

Because of the ice currently above sea level in Greenland and Antarctica. Melting sea ice leads to higher temperatures in the air above the ocean. These higher temperatures lead to more melting in onshore ice, like the ica cap in Antarctica.

Re:The polar cap in the south pole is getting bigg

[RedWizzard]

If you go to the source [uiuc.edu], you can compare the southern [uiuc.edu] and northern [uiuc.edu] anomolies. Those graphs show that while the antarctic ice coverage is about 1.25 million square kms higher than the 1979-2000 mean, the artic ice coverage is over 2 million square kms lower than the 1979-2000 mean. The antarctic increase is not making up for the artic decrease: there is a net loss of ice worldwide. This data points to higher average temperatures and more extreme seasonal variations. Neither of those are good news.