Posted by
Average Voter on Saturday, September 12, 2009 9:55:11 AM
As we all heard about in 2007, that was the worst year in Arctic ice cover since monitoring started in 1979. Now there is a lot of talk about opening up a passage for ships that would cut the cost by billions of dollars to shipping companies because of the much shorter route by cutting through the Arctic. But is it still shrinking?
This article seems to want to draw some concern towards the the melting of ice. Yet, since 2007 it has started to grow again
In 2007, the ice shrunk to 4.13 million square miles, the smallest amount of ice coverage since record keeping.
The consistently severe retreats in recent years have prompted dire warnings from some scientists, who say ice-free Arctic summers may be just years away. That phenomenon, they say, would accelerate global warming and threaten the survival of polar bears, which feed primarily along ice edges.
The shrinking extent of Arctic ice is only part of the picture. U.S. scientists have released several studies this year pointing to a rapid thinning of ice cover even in areas where melting has been incomplete.
In July, in a landmark five-year study based on satellite data compiled from 2004-08, scientists from NASA and the University of Washington showed that, "for the first time on record," the Arctic now contained a greater expanse of fragile, first-year ice than the traditionally durable multi-year ice.
But in the same article, we discover that the melting and shrinking is going the other direction.
"While this year's minimum ice extent will probably not reach the record low of 2007, it remains well below normal," the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reports in its latest summary of Arctic ice conditions.
The all-time biggest retreat was recorded in 2007 at 4.13 million square kilometres, and the 2008 retreat fell just short of that record.
So that would mean the each year since 2007, the arctic ice melt has slowed down. That is only two years, so a turn around may be short lived, but lets look at another clue in the article.
But while the Northern Sea Route along Russia's Arctic coast was passable this summer, the Northwest Passage through Canada's Arctic archipelago did not open as much this year as it did in 2007 and 2008.
"Satellite images show that the shallow and narrow southern route, which (Norwegian explorer Roald) Amundsen navigated in 1905, appeared to open briefly this August," the NSIDC report states. "This route was also open in 2007 and 2008. The deeper northern route, of great interest for potential commercial transport, was open in 2007 but is still blocked by ice this year."
The Canadian Ice Service, an Environment Canada agency that monitors northern shipping conditions, confirmed the Northwest Passage has remained largely blocked by ice this summer.
Just so you don't miss it, a Norwegian sxplorer navigated the southern route in 1905. So in the past, long before we started keeping records of Arctic melt each year, people were crossing parts of the Arctic. This would seem to indicate that this happens on a regular basis, and maybe not so out of the ordinary. Only time will tell whether or not this trend of decreased ice melt will continue.