Arctic Shipping Update

Sixty years ago, the New York Times predicted ships would be sailing over the North Pole “within the lifetime of our children.

TimesMachine: October 19, 1958 – NYTimes.com

And 60 years later, both the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route are blocked by 12 foot thick ice.

FullSize_CICE_combine_thick_SM_EN_20180516.png (1337×1113)

Reggie better get his blowtorch out from prison. Sea ice volume has hardly changed since the peak earlier this month.

FullSize_CICE_combine_thick_SM_EN_20180516.png (1337×1113)

There has been almost no change in extent over the past three days.  Red below shows decrease since May 13, green shows increase.

May 13      May 16

But no worries, the Democrat’s #1 climate prophet says the Arctic will be ice-free this summer.

The Argus-Press – Google News Archive Search

And Nobel Prize Winner Al Gore says the Arctic has been ice-free for four years.

Gore: Polar ice cap may disappear by summer 2014

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21 Responses to Arctic Shipping Update

  1. Anon says:

    What this shows is the awesome power of Global Warming:

    Did You Know the Greatest Two-Year Global Cooling Event Just Took Place?

    Would it surprise you to learn the greatest global two-year cooling event of the last century just occurred? From February 2016 to February 2018 (the latest month available) global average temperatures dropped 0.56°C. You have to go back to 1982-84 for the next biggest two-year drop, 0.47°C—also during the global warming era. All the data in this essay come from GISTEMP Team, 2018: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP). NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (dataset accessed 2018-04-11 at https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/). This is the standard source used in most journalistic reporting of global average temperatures.

    https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/04/24/did_you_know_the_greatest_two-year_global_cooling_event_just_took_place_103243.html

    Even if the temperature keeps dropping, AGW is like a blow torch aimed at the Arctic and it is not going to wait for the temperature to go up, it is happening now!

  2. Cam says:

    Canadian Ice Services is only showing that stretch of the NWP as medium first year ice (70-120cm thick). http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS55SD/20180514180000_WIS55SD_0010033193.pdf

    Further west, however, they have it much thicker than the Danes show as either thick first year (greater than 120cm) or old ice. http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS56SD/20180514180000_WIS56SD_0010033357.pdf

  3. frederik wisse says:

    Seth Borenstein , so boring … Who has the time to read his nonsense ?

  4. arn says:

    I wonder that arctic ice still exists.
    Considering that all the AGW scare is nothing but hot air a fraction of it should be enough to melt away the north and southpole within a few hours.

  5. Griff says:

    Well of course the sea routes are blocked…

    even with the new Russian ships they aren’t open for months yet.

    you might as well write ‘shocking complete lack of Xmas trees in Boulder this May’

    • AndyG55 says:

      Poor groff, desperately clinging to ice straws.

    • tonyheller says:

      Nice shipping route – which might be good for three days a year if they get lucky and have a big icebreaker..

      • Griff says:

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41037071

        This diminution of northern ice is something that the Russian ship owners believe will continue well into the future.

        “If there was a material change in the ice thickness it would change the period of the year that the ship could move through the Northern Sea Route,” said Bill Spears from Sovcomflot.

        “There is an assumption that the ice is not going to thicken dramatically for the economic life of these vessels, which could be over 30 years.”

        • AndyG55 says:

          Unfortunately, their assumptions will almost certainly turn out to be wrong, because they are probably based on the anti-science junk of the AGW narrative.

          Its more wishful thinking on their behalf, a HOPE that it will continue to decline.

          So WHY do you think it should remain high, and it is such a catastrophe that it has declined from the most extreme sea ice extent since before 1900?

          Why do you want the people up there to suffer through continued extreme extents, instead of the more NORMAL extents of before the LIA ?

          Is your hatred that deep ?

  6. Pathway says:

    Not open for months means the end of summer when the ice begins forming again.

    • Griff says:

      The NWP is usually open no earlier than July (later for completely ice free passage)

      Earliest record
      http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-northwest-passage-20170729-story.html

      the russian NSR is reckoned open for 4 months in summer in whole or part

      • AndyG55 says:

        It really does NEED to be open for a lot longer, doesn’t it griff.

        Great to see you finally agreeing that a LESSER amount of sea ice would be a really good think, and nothing for you to continue to bed-wet about.

        Back even a small way toward more normal Holocene levels would be a great bonus to the people up there.

        Unfortunately, it looks like its going to follow the NATURAL cycles of the AMO and start to increase again.

        • Disillusioned says:

          I don’t know that Griff has ever acknowledged the AMO. Perhaps Griff thinks “greenhouse gasses” are going to interrupt that cycle.

          Last time the AMO was scraping along the bottom, I walked on the Ohio River in January – and that was during a period of much higher sunspot activity than now.

          Although it’s going to be many years before the AMO hits bottom again (currently riding the wave crest), hopefully the solar system won’t be experiencing Dalton or Maunder type of minimum solar activity the next time it scrapes along the bottom. That could be devastating for crops.

  7. toorightmate says:

    What if the NYT was referring to people who would be very late breeders?
    Like all those women that gave birth when they were 95 years old. I think Griff is a product of late breeding.
    Still, the NYT has no time for such things these days, too busy pursuing Russian links to anyone they can think of.

  8. John F. Hultquist says:

    Some folks have settled for “ice free” to be defined as less than 1 million square kilometers, sometimes called a “Wadham” after Peter Wadhams of Cambridge.
    Rumor has it that this odd number will have to be changed to 3 million, or maybe 5 million. A UN party of thousands will have to meet for 2 weeks in an exotic place to discuss and vote on this. Once “ice free” is properly defined, and the goal reached, Gore, Markey, Hansen, and Wadhams** can be be carved on a large block of basal (Ochroma) wood and hung on the NYT building.

    **lightweights all

    • Cornelius says:

      John, I’m considering making a legal claim to all the land in California. As it’s only 423,970 sq km, it must be “land-free”. As I’m asking for “nothing”, I can’t be legally denied.

      Oh, and all the nutjobs who prescribe to the ice-free Arctic nonsense will be forced to leave.

      • Griff says:

        LOL

        reminds me of the statistics in the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (which proved the universe was uninhabited…

        “given that the volume of the universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of worlds. But not all of them are populated; therefore only a finite number are. Any finite number divided by infinity is zero, therefore the average population of the Universe is zero, and so the total population must be zero.”

  9. R2Dtoo says:

    It has remained cold in Northern Canada. Churchill (hudson bay) was -6C yesterday, and will have a high of 0C today. They had a major blizzard last week. Breakup will be delayed.

  10. Ozonebust says:

    June and July will be interesting for the Arctic sea ice volume and extent. The observed rise in the chart coincides with atmospheric bias southward, look at the Antarctic blozone activity for the same period.
    Regards

  11. I find this quite informative. I wonder if I could volunteer a follow-up question?

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