Northeast Passage Becomes Viable Trade Route 363
Stirling Newberry writes "The New York Times reports on the continued expansion of the sea route along the Russian side of the Arctic Ocean. It was only in 2009 that outside ships were allowed to ply this lane, but Russians have used it since the early 20th century. What makes this year a landmark is that the polar ice cap is smaller at its September minimum than before, allowing large container ships and oil tankers — the backbone of sea commerce — to travel between Europe and Asia, saving time and money over the Suez route, as well as avoiding several politically unstable regions of the world. Putin has been pushing development along the route. While the northwest passage is only gradually opening, the opposite side of the Arctic Ocean looks set for expansion. Siberian Riviera anyone?"
Yay! It's getting nice and warm! (Score:2)
Sure, all coastal cities might be gone in fifty years, but who cares; it's lovely spring weather at the pole.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Sure, all coastal cities might be gone in fifty years, but who cares; it's lovely spring weather at the pole.
No, we'll just have *new* coastal cities. Much cleaner and nicer ones that New York, for sure.
Re: (Score:2)
Except, well, the entire population of New York would occupy the said new coastal city and those nearby, leading to New New York. I'm not so sure that's a good thing....
Re: (Score:2)
And they would have some awesome sights and caves for diving, too - good for tourism! ~
Re: (Score:2)
It'll be like going to the Jersey shore!
In Pennsylvania.
Re: (Score:2)
Cities are easy enough to gradually rebuild and modify. The idea that those we have should stagnate as they are isn't particularly useful.
Re: (Score:3)
If NYC was so undesirable why does it have half the population of the state?
That is only the city, the metro area has a higher population than NY state. I would postulate the undesirables are folks like you that use such a term to refer to fellow humans on a regular basis.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I would say that my worst customer service calls have all come from the Long Island area.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is right next to New York? Long Island is where the rich New Yorkers live.
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
The sparring over oil rights, right up to the Pole have been hotting up.
Russia, Iceland, Sweden, among others are looking at the prospect of drilling in the seas - which scares the heck out of me. One good chunk of ice and then what? I hope it proves too costly to attempt.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
And that combination can pretty much scare the hell out of anyone with a brain....
Yeah, I've had this scenario playing itself out in my brain for most of my life: the critters evolved far enough to be able to slightly escape the gravity well; then, they burned up all their resources, and were extinguished when the next big rock came too close to their planet.
Worst part of it is that the oil companies contributed to this result, instead of extending the usable life of their scarce resources.
A non-event (Score:3, Informative)
Actually quoting the register [theregister.co.uk]
So this is sort of non-story hype.
Re:A non-event (Score:5, Informative)
Actually quoting the register [theregister.co.uk]
So this is sort of non-story hype.
Not quite. Yes it's hyped (so is everything else). Note that the NE passage has 1) not been historically open all year round 2) often needed support from nuclear powered icebreakers 3) previously restricted to smaller vessels (no large tankers, no super max container ships).
The fact that all three limitations are likely to go away on a permanent (or at least long term) basis IS a significant change.
Further, if things continue apace (rapid warming of the Arctic as proposed by every single anthropogenic climate change theory) the NW passage will open for business in the next decade.
Re: (Score:2)
as proposed by every single anthropogenic climate change theory
And non-anthropogenic theories. It doesn't matter the hypothesised cause, the temperature rise is clear from the evidence.
Solar Activity (Score:2)
The armchair climatologist in me expects the ice sheets will return in the next 2-3 years and this will, once again, not be a shipping lane. The earth may be warming slightly, but without a high level of solar activity I don't think it will be enough to drive off the ice sheets.
Re: (Score:2)
Good thing we have real climatologists who actually think about things, do research, talk to others, make models and such. Armchair generals who don't even understand basic physics might make some big errors.
Re: (Score:2)
Translation: I don't actually know what climatologists say, so I'll just keep talking about Al Gore.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you bother listening to anything at Al Gore event? Honestly, I only watched about ten minutes of his movie. I'm not interested in Al Gore, not one little bit. I'm interested in what scientists say, not what populizers say. Being skeptical of a non-scientist like Gore is rationale, rejecting what the large majority of experts on an entire field of research say because of what Al Gore says is just plain irrational.
Re: (Score:3)
That has been looked at and it doesn't appear that even if the Sun went into a Maunder minimum type period it would be enough to stop global warming. How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming. [skepticalscience.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, that's not politicized. Not. At. All. The comments are full of conjecture, and like the article... more soft science! I'd prefer to make my prediction (ice sheets will be back in 2-3 years in Northwest passage) then wait and see, rather than argue on the internets with a bunch of other armchair climatologists.
Re: (Score:2)
Here you are: On the effect of a new grand minimum of solar activity on the future climate on Earth [agu.org], published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Re: (Score:2)
Are we not coming off a solar activity peak?
Nope. In fact, solar activity has been declining for most of the last decade [noaa.gov] and we are just starting to come out of the trough, but it looks as though this cycle will be much quieter than the previous one.
negative feedback loop? (Score:2)
My engineer friend points out that if this saves fuel for large shippers, that should decrease global warming, resulting in a future closing of the passage to these largest ships, right? :)
Re: (Score:2)
My engineer friend points out that if this saves fuel for large shippers, that should decrease global warming, resulting in a future closing of the passage to these largest ships, right? :)
Only if bulk shipping used an appreciable fraction of global fossil fuel use. From the Wikipedia article [wikimedia.org]:
3.5 to 4 percent of all climate change emissions are caused by shipping.
Furthermore, bunker fuel is high in sulfur. While sulfur dioxide pollution is generally not considered a good thing, it does produce aerosols that reflect light back into space and create some bit of cooling (think volcanic eruptions).
Ocean noise pollution (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If climate change is real (just for the sake of argument right now) then some people will benefit and some people will suffer. Of course the big question is how many people will be in each group and which areas will be affected positively and which negatively. That leads into a huge nasty debate with lots of accusations and name-calling that i don't intend to start right now but which i'm sure is already sprouting up in other comments.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
exactly. raising waters may flood low area's like Manhattan, or new orleans.
This isn't bad, but the only way to really clean up wall street is to push it literally underwater.
lurking for millions of years (Score:2)
But not Matthew Broderick. Or Raymond Burr.
Re: (Score:2)
"Wall Street" is located several stories, mostly several dozen stories, above street level. The bankers will have golden gondolas taxiing them in their glass 3rd Millennium Venice.
Or, more likely, they'll just move somewhere else. Because the neighborhood will be ransacked by the migrating hordes who can't afford to find the silver lining in the calamity. That's the large majority of the 20-50 million people Wall Street is embedded in.
There is no upside to the climate change that we've bought. Except for so
Re: (Score:2)
Good? :(
Different. :|
Increasing Wealth -- Good? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, it is good. It makes major economies more efficient which is a step towards increasing wealth overall.
This sounds like what should rightly be termed a "rising tide fallacy". This increasing wealth will be concentrated among a very few who will use it to further pervert markets and politics.
Which is not to say that flat or decreasing wealth is good or better. Rather, it simply acknowledges that increasing wealth is not necessarily good, under the current circumstances, and that it may be a net "bad". An unfortunate state of affairs.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, it is good. It makes major economies more efficient which is a step towards increasing wealth overall.
Never mind that orders of magnitude more wealth than that is going to be squandered having to build levees, dikes and seawalls over the next century.
Re: (Score:2)
Never mind that orders of magnitude more wealth than that is going to be squandered having to build levees, dikes and seawalls over the next century.
...construction and engineering jobs are the future!
Re:Da (Score:4, Funny)
is bubble comrade, have sold condo to buy bitcoins while cheap!
Re: (Score:3)
In Soviet Russia, bitcoins buy you!
Re: (Score:2)
in democratic US, dollar buys you!
Soviet russia was ruble...
bitcoins.. vell dey sit in da corner.. being like the iphone 4s, cryptic but ultimately disappoint.
Re: (Score:2)
thanks comrade
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, Bitcoins. Funny how the Slashdot stories on those stopped now that they're only worth $2 each...
Re:And climate change is a myth... (Score:4, Informative)
This one was so locked in ice that it could never be used. Now, however, it is viable?
To quote the summary: "Russians have used it since the early 20th century". Hard to understand how it being used for 100 years to you constitutes as "never", and at the same time as proof of global warming due to it recently opening.
Re:And climate change is a myth... (Score:5, Informative)
The Russians use nuclear icebreakers. That doesn't really scale for most commercial traffic, and now you don't need them in summer anymore.
Re: (Score:3)
No, they only had... wait for it... steam and diesel icebreakers! And they were prone to getting stuck, which is when they mounted a heroic rescue with pilots' deeds posted all over Pravda.
Traversing the passage was only viable in the sense that the Soviet Union was willing to pour resources into it, for not entirely economically motivated purposes.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you miss how the Russians have been using it that long, but only recently was it wide enough for container ships and oil tankers?
If humans or to blame or not is up for debate, the fact that there is less ice in the Northeast passage is just a fact.
Re: (Score:2)
The sun's solar output is increasing rapidly, because it's a few billion years in the future and the sun is getting close to entering it's Red Giant phase, and soon the earth's oceans will boil off.
The upside? People who said we should have put more effort into our space program can say "I told you so" prior to burning to a crisp along with everyone else.
There may always be an upside, but some silver linings are pretty thin. :P
Re: (Score:2)
There may always be an upside, but some silver linings are pretty thin. :P
Sliver linings, then. :)
Cheaper gas! (Score:2)
I know! Opening the passage means easier oil transportation, which means cheaper gas. Which means accelerated global warming, which implies faster melting of the ice cap, which implies the passage will open even more, which means even cheaper gas!
Re: (Score:3)
"There is ALWAYS an upside."
Canada may become habitable!
I, for one, welcome the annexation of our Northern Province.
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder at what point you deniers will finally throw in the towel.
Re:OH, Goodie! (Score:5, Insightful)
As sea level rise,
unwise to throw in towel,
for then you get wet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably never - when the sea levels rise in a few decades, they'll still deny that man had anything to do with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing there says he's a denier. Most /. threads are wankfests, and copyright and global warming threads are wankier than most.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Between 10 and 12,000 years ago, well within the time of Man, the seas rose and fell dramatically while the glaciers went back and forth over the Northern Hemisphere. For thousands of years North America and Asia were connected via the Bering Land Bridge.
Climate change happens, with or without Man's impact, those who reject that climate change happens without blaming man are the true deniers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if I were to accept this is just normal climate cycles (and basically claim that the overwhelming majority of the climatology community are liars or morons), that would still leave the fact that long-chain hydrocarbons are eventually, and probably not that far in the future, going to be come very expensive, and the whole foundation of our industrial global economy is going to become very shaky. Even if we happily keep barfing CO2 in the atmosphere by burning coal and various methane/natural gas deriva
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oil Shale says you are wrong.
Estimates of global deposits range from 2.8 to 3.3 trillion barrels (450×109 to 520×109 m3) of recoverable oil.
"A 2005 estimate set the total world resources of oil shale at 411 gigatons — enough to yield 2.8 to 3.3 trillion barrels (450×109 to 520×109 m3) of shale oil. This exceeds the world's proven conventional oil reserves, estimated at 1.317 trillion barrels (209.4×109 m3), as of 1 January 2007."
That puts your end of "long chain hydrocarbons"
Re: (Score:2)
And I'm sure all the farmers won't mind all that water being pumped in for reclamation. So instead of an oil shortage, you'll have a water shortage.
Re: (Score:2)
So, literally, we'll give the brick wall to our grandkids. Nice man...nice.
I think there will be a sudden interest in the tremendous plastic reserves that we've been hoarding in our landfills.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:OH, Goodie! (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a lot of money in converting one form of energy to another even if it results in considerable loss of energy. Take electricity for example, there is a lot of loss of energy in heat when converting coal to electricity. This is even more "wasteful" when the electricity is used to make heat, such as an electric stove, oven, or furnace. This loss of energy is recovered in the convenience.
With oil shale the loss of energy can be a non-issue if the source of the energy is in an "inconvenient" form. People like to drive cars. People like to drive cars for distances that are currently impossible for electric cars. If we can somehow find an "inconvenient" energy source that can be turned into a "convenient" one like gasoline then we have found a way to maintain the convenience of our gasoline powered cars.
From my understanding the means to remove the oil from the oil shale and oil sands is by heating the oil until it is liquid enough to boil away (to be condensed) or liquified (to be filtered out). This heat could come from a number of less convenient energy sources like natural gas, solar, geothermal, nuclear, or just burning some of the oil shale to recover the oil from other oil shale. This heating of the oil shale to recover the oil could be from heat that might otherwise be wasted from some other energy production or industrial process, turning an energy negative process into an energy positive one.
Some very real limitation of technology, physics, economics, etc. means that we will be burning fossil fuels for the next fifty years even if that means energy lost in the process. Airplanes need kerosene, cargo ships and trains need diesel fuel. The operational lifespan of these vehicles is on the order of decades. The infrastructure needed to support any other kind of fuel does not yet exist and will also take decades to shift. The US military thinks fifty years into the future on what weapons they build now. That means, barring some kind of war on the scale of WWII, what is on the drawing boards now will be in production in ten years, be used for thirty, and kept in reserve for another ten. This time scale seems nearly universal from combat boots to battleships.
There is no way that I can see moving away from an economy that does not run on hydrocarbon fuels in less than fifty years unless someone is already designing airplanes that run on liquid hydrogen, prototyping nuclear powered cargo ships, and planning out transcontinental electric rail lines.
This loss of energy is only a theoretical one. In reality, or economically speaking, there is energy gained in that energy is gained in a form that is useful (or just more convenient) and therefore valuable. The economics of energy is more complex than the physics. This is especially true when politics is added to energy and economy.
Re: (Score:2)
Its interesting how that time frame lines up with the start of civilization and the world we recognize. What the world does without people isn't relevant.
Could it be that a sustained period of stable climate?
Was the right juice to propel a clever primate,
To re-make the world, to improve upon God,
And slip into your pocket the latest, greatest iPod.
What will a sustained period of unstable climate slip into our pockets? Zunes?
Re: (Score:2)
Strawman.
Re: (Score:3)
Let me put this is a way the real Wyatt Earp would understand. Your argument is "People used to die before there were guns, therefore the smoking gun in my hand and the bullet hole in his chest cannot be used as evidence. He obviously died of natural causes."
Reality refuses to be that silly. Human CO2 emissions are driving current climate change. That doesn't mean there aren't natural processes that change climate, too. They are even operating now. They are smaller than those caused by humans. Natur [skepticalscience.com]
Re:OH, Goodie! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OH, Goodie! (Score:5, Interesting)
While in theory (chuckle) science leaves the door open, at some point the practical scientist will just conclude the evidence of evolution is overwhelming and the creationist will continue to ramble forever because he's on a religious agenda. While there's natural variations in temperature it is starting to get extremely unlikely that there aren't man made effects at play, there's so much vested interest here its starting to look like the tobacco industry's research into the health effects of smoking.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I too admit I'm ambivalent. Certainly, there may be man-made effects involved, but how involved? More than solar cycles, or any number of other phenomena? Is it AGM, or just another natural process or cycle we've not previously run across?
At this point being ambivalent is the equivalent of never having bothered to check it out. Or really being a denier and just pretending to be ambivalent just to make people think you're objective. Since you threw in Al Gore as the sample "shady characters" but didn't mention Lehman Brothers or Oil Companies or the Koch Brothers, I'm guessing your ambivalence is a sham.
If you wanted the scientific evidence, it's not easy to find, because of all the sham sites (wattsupwiththat, ourcivilization.com, globa
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not clear what Al Gore has to do with this. I don't care what Al Gore has to say on anything. Why do you?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you compare that list to the one that shows those that are shrinking? No? Here, let me help you: http://www.wgms.ch/mbb/sum09.html [www.wgms.ch]
I know this link is wasted on you, as your argument is one of the most easily, most often debunked claims. Not to mention it shows you have no idea how glaciers work or what the difference between weather and climate is.
I'm not surprised anymore, just disappointed.
Re: (Score:3)
So, select glaciers being watched are shrinking. Your link is just as bad as the GP. Now, when we can measure them all, and average out the amount of ice lost/gained, than that would be something to point to.
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't like the study, you can trawl through the entire inventory of world glaciers: http://nsidc.org/data/docs/noaa/g01130_glacier_inventory/ [nsidc.org]. Of course, you could then complain that the data is incomplete for many glaciers, that it is tough to compare them all, and keep arguing that that list is "just as bad" as the list expressly designed to just show the ones that are growing. I don't expect you to actually man up and do one of two things: run a statistical analysis on whether the detailed list of
Re:OH, Goodie! (Score:4, Informative)
A mind is a terrible thing to not use.
Educate yourself, son:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850 [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
"Another Global Warming Wankfest"
Because we all know that Vladimir Putin is a tree-hugging environmental wacko, right?
If he's talking about developing the northern coasts of Russia to facilitate this sea route, he obviously thinks this is a permanent trend.
I suppose he might be wrong, but whatever he is, he's not a Global Warming wanker.
Re: (Score:2)
And yet there's less ice up there. You can defer to whatever south Park episode you like, but the fact is that just what was predicted is coming about. At some point you either are going to look like a denying moron or admit, just maybe, that vomiting massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere over the last 250 years may be having some sort of an effect on things.
Re: (Score:2)
And which science is that? Since the overwhelming majority of climatologists think AGW is a reasonably well established fact, I'm curious as to what science you're referring to.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually it was the Bush Administration that decided to use Climate Change instead of Global Warming, exactly because people who know literally nothing about the phenomenon except what it is called would be free to infer "But the climate has always been changing so this means nothing! Derp!" even though that is not the actual prediction being made*.
And you're free to continue to think that, but don't claim science agrees that 1.4F change in 100 years is remarkably stable and not statistically significant wh
Re: (Score:2)
Heh. Derp [skepticalscience.com] indeed.
BTW, the science is quite arguable however the actual arguments are taking place nowhere near where you think they are. Turns out to argue the science you have to know the science. Arguing about fantasies of what the science might be and what 1970 popular magazines led you to believe it might be is great and fun in the same sense that masturbation is great fun -- just please do it in private, because it's useless to everyone else.
Re: (Score:2)
The glassy-eyed liberals switched from "Global Warming" to "Klimate Change" to hedge their bets.
Both terms have been around for for over 3 decades, you do realise what the "CC" in IPCC stands for, right? The only people who tried to make political mileage from conflating the terms were in the Bush administration, specifically the PR guru Frank Luntz [guardian.co.uk]. But I know I'm wasting my pixels because brown shirts like you will swallow even the most obvious propaganda that your masters put in front of you and still defend their position until your death.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see anything saying republicans are the instigators of this or that it's political at all. There's no reason to make hateful accusations. It's just convenient side effect of the melted pole.
Re:How funny (Score:5, Insightful)
For my own part, I don't believe the case for anthropogenic global warming is an open and shut case. I realize there are others who think I'm a lunatic for not being able to come to that conclusion. But the essence of science is thoroughly vetting theories... anthropogenic global warming is a theory whose final chapter is yet to be written.
As for the "what does global warming mean?" - well that is even less well thought out by both sides. Climate change believers think it's the apocalypse. Climate change deniers think it means nothing. Deniers point to harsh winters like last year and say "Global Warming is hooey"... Believers point to every hurricane and say, "See? I told you so"
Melting ice caps point to a warming planet. Opening up new shipping lanes is just one positive that is a result of global climate change. There are undoubtedly negatives. What all those positives and negatives are is unknown by all.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
As for the "what does global warming mean?"
Dead simple on one level. Higher average global temperature. More energy in the atmosphere and eventually the oceans. (We can probably ignore the effect on rocks.) This is a direct consequence of a higher CO2 concentration in the air, by simple physics. (Some other gases too.) Given that CO2 diffuses pretty well, it's not too hard to measure the increase. The problem is in the detail.
It does not necessarily mean warmer weather where you are located. Climate and weather are very complex, and very non-linear.
Re: (Score:2)
But beasts can be killed and eaten. And thus the circle of life is complete. mmmmm, yummy beastflesh.
Re: (Score:3)
Is it as ironic as AGW believers who live right next to San Francisco Bay, which was dry until about 20,000 years ago?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think there is an irony there, since AGW does not mean that there was no warming happening before humans arrived. It merely means that humans are accelerating it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
For me the irony of that isn't in the anthro vs. non-anthro debate. The irony is in people regarding a few more meters of rise as apocalyptic, when the "apocalypse" has already occured in their own backyard.
As for the "anthro" aspect of it, I always like to imagine a couple of guys in the area during that time. One turns to the other and says, "Put out that fire. If you don't, the earth will heat up, the valley will fill, and we won't be able to walk to the Farallon Hills anymore".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When oil shoots up to thousands of dollars a barrel, just imagine how much poorer you'll be.
Re:How funny (Score:4, Insightful)
That's shortsighted thinking.
Even in a city, you depend on the environment. It's not just about polar bears. It's also about crops, coastal cities, and illnesses, for instance.
For instance, if coastal cities start getting flooded in New Orleans style, that's going to be pretty darn important, if only because dealing with the resulting mess is going to cost a lot of money, which will eventually come out of your pocket.
Also, even if wherever you are benefits, some other places will suffer, which will result in mass migrations to wherever you are. That will also have economical costs.
Re: (Score:3)
That's shortsighted thinking.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the OP, but short sighted thinking is precisely what makes money on Wall Street. Poor people tend to live in the short term as well, as in "what am I going to eat TODAY?"
Until these problems are addressed, I don't think most people in the world are going to care much about the environment.
Re: (Score:2)
Reality can't be fooled. You can pretend you're not walking off a cliff all you want, but you're still going to fall right the moment you step over the edge.
Poor people aren't that much of the problem. Most of the problem is caused by large businesses and powerplants.
Re: (Score:2)
New Orleans flooded because the city got cheap on their sea walls.
I would say New Orleans flooded because they decided to build a city in a place requiring sea walls to keep the streets dry. At best it's a calculated risk that the sea walls will keep the city dry
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not saying New Orleans got flooded due to climate change, I'm saying it's an example of the kind of consequences that can be expected if the sea starts rising enough.
You can't just shrug it off with "oh well, sucks for the polar bears, but I don't care". You will very much care, because if things get off kilter enough, they won't be so polite as to keep the damage to places and things you don't care about.
We very much depend on the environment being inside some parameters. If the sea level rises too qui
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
First, the 'deniers' all denied that anything was happening, that it's all normal variation, etc.
Now they MUST accept it's happening, but they deny that people could have anything to do with it, and insist that we are powerless to do anything about it.
Next, look for 'deniers' to accept that humanity is 'a factor' but not the only reason, and expect them to refuse any actions to ameliorate the problem, because they can't completely fix it anyway. (already starting)
Finally, expect the blamestorm to fall upon
Re: (Score:2)
"No cheap fixes like pumping sulphur dioxide into the upper atmosphere"
Wow, starting out with terraforming our own planet, as opposed to starting out by refraining from the behavior that caused the problem in the first place.
And hey, why bother vetting solutions with those who actually, you know, studied the problem?
What could possibly go wrong?
So "No cheap fixes"?
YES - it's YOUR fault for being a greedy son of a bitch.
Re:riveria? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
-I'm just sayin'