"For the first time in human history, the North Pole can be circumnavigated" - what do you think about this?

Question

This is a front page headline from todays The Independent - one of the UKs most prestigious newspapers known for its neutrality and adherence to facts.

The article states:

Both the NW and the NE passages have become ice free "for the first time in at least 125,000 years"

"The opening of the passages is only the greatest of a host of ominous signs this month of a gathering crisis in the Arctic."

"Professor Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the official US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), hailed the publication of the images as "a historic event", and said that it provided further evidence that the Arctic icecap may now have entered a "death spiral"."

In addition:

Auyuittuq National Park has seen "flooding from thawing glaciers. Auyuittuq means "land that never melts".

"Four weeks ago, a seven-year study at the University of Alberta reported that – besides shrinking in area – the thickness of the ice had dropped by half in just six years."

Please do not make any comments about what Al Gore or Palin or any other politician (especially US) has said.

The above is real, today, it has happened!

It is not a prediction.

It is not a theory.

It is not a computer model.

It is real and has already happened - the arctic is melting...

Finally, anyone who wants to says this is 'natural', 'usual', 'part of the pattern', etc. - please give verifiable sources for your statements (e.g. where are the computer models, predictions, etc that show that this much ice was going to happen without outside - e.g. human - interference). Any answers without such will be considered 'not an answer'.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/for-the-first-time-in-human-history-the-north-pole-can-be-circumnavigated-913924.html

Answer 1

It reminds me of the ignorant fools that rushed out to gather up the fish,as the sea receded as the tsunami approached! They  'believed' that they were getting a good deal on some free fish!  I wonder how the folks in N.O. feel about the effects of abrupt climate change.

Answer 2

We know from borehole temperature studies in Greenland (Dahl-Jensen et al. 1998) that temperatures in Greenland, and we can assume the Arctic, were considerably warmer in the past, for a way longer period of time than today.  So I have to question the assertion that "Both the NW and the NE passages have become ice free "for the first time in at least 125,000 years"

Answer 3

Utterly ridiculous. (please see additional comments below under "EDIT")

The Northeast passage has been used as a shipping lane continuously since the 1930's http://www.answers.com/topic/northern-se...  It's open every summer from about June to October. The Northwest passage has been open many times in recent recorded history.

Here are a few occasions the North Pole could have been circumnavigated.

1940 and 1944 St Roch traverses the Northwest Passage.

http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/internat...

1957 USS Storis traverses the Northwest Passage. http://www.eaglespeak.us/2006/12/sunday-...

1977 Single handed transit of the Northwest Passage. http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/internat...

M.V Linblad carries tourists through the Northwest Passage: 1984  (and again in 1988) http://archives.cbc.ca/lifestyle/travel/...

2 guys sail through the Northwest Passage in a 20 foot catamaran: 1988 http://archives.cbc.ca/sports/exploits/d...

2000 St Roch II repeats the 1940 trip made by St Roch http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/internat...

At least 110 vessels are understood to have sailed the Northwest Passage since 1940. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6999...

EDIT and response.

To Adam C and Antarcticice.

ADAM C. You say... “DaveH - you seem to have given yourself away by failing to read/comprehend the question - do you do that with all information prtesented to you? It would explain things...

The article is not about whether one or the other can be open (this is well known, hence their names "passage") but that they are, for the first time, both open AT THE SAME TIME”

I read and comprehend very well thank you. Perhaps you misread or miscomprehended the part of my response that explained that the Northeast Passage is open EVERY summer. You might also like to study the geo-political history of the region regarding granting and denial of access.

There’s no ‘denialism’ here, you just make a statement that’s simply not true... "For the first time in human history, the North Pole can be circumnavigated". That is simply incorrect.

Antarcticice. You tell me ...  ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚€ÂœDaveH answer leaves out a couple of small facts like the time it took these early trips the St Roch for instance it's second trip through in 1944 was considered much faster than its first, the second trip only took 28 months”

28 months? Where are you getting your history from? Wikipedia?  (Oh that's right you are!)

“In 1944, St. Roch returned to Vancouver via the more northerly route of the Northwest Passage, making her run in 86 days” http://hnsa.org/ships/stroch.htm



To you both I would point out that I have only quoted very recent history. Charles M is perfectly correct in saying that the Vikings circumnavigated the North Pole by returning ‘home’ westwards. What Grovesmuk tells you about arctic ocean currents is also very well documented.

I can't add links in support of their comments as I've reached the 10 link limit in this post; so I have to invite you to challenge their positions in new questions. I look forward to them.

Answer 4

perhaps the article should state the arctic is ice free in know human history. before the last ice age, the planet was warmer than it is now. we know this from the geological record. and yes man was around 75,000 years ago, in fact the super volcano eruption that caused the last ice age, nearly wiped out man kind. the arctic has been ice free in the past, and it will be ice free again in the future regardless of what man does or does not do. global climate change is normal and natural. do not let anyone tell you other wise.

Answer 5

its a typical alarmist lie. the northwest passage has been made at least a dozen times in the last 100 years, starting with Roald Amundsen by sailing ship in 1905 as anyone who made it through grade school knows.

the north east passage is a regular shipping route & has been for 400 years since 1648.

you need to spend a minute doing some research if you want to be taken seriously.

these ridiculous hysterical outburst's are getting annoying.

Answer 6

You said in human history. How do you know before 1492? I guess you don't. Thus you "facts" are based on a false assumption, putting your beliefs in error.  

Answer 7

I think 125,000 years is a very short time period on a global scale.  Seems this sort of thing happens after EVERY Ice Age.  Big surprise there....<rolls eyes>

Edit:  Riiiiight....we'll ignore the fact man wasn't responsible for the OTHER times it happened....

Answer 8

First time in history ??? Actually , We have only been reliably measuring Arctic sea ice for about 30 years . The article statement is false or at least , yet to be determined .

The point remains the same -- "first time in human history" is unknown , therefore, inaccurate . Downplaying the huge gap in data for comparisons to the past is not a good argument .

I fail to see what the Vikings have to do with this . Are you suggesting they did not farm and raise livestock on Greenland ? There is nothing circumstantial about that . It is simply overwhelming fact .

Also , a slight drop below median levels is hardly enough to predict the 'disappearance' of  Arctic sea ice in ten years . Those predictions are foolish .

http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/bist/bist.pl?an...

Answer 9

I'm not sure how you dismiss tangible evidence from around the world as "circumstantial" - there's no explanation for a single piece of such evidence other than that temps were warmer.    

As for the Northwest passage, given that humans only began to try, in small wooden vessels, within the last 10,000 years, to navigate it, that's kind of a misleading quote you've got.

Answer 10

i have been following it all a bit too closely i think; checking the nsidc site several times a week (phew, looks like ice loss is finally leveling off for this year; http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ ) and worrying about the hunters, the bears, and the threat of an arctic oil war, not to mention the greenland ice sheet collapsing....

Answer 11

It's nice to see the usual attempt to spread mis-information in relation to the NW passage

DaveH answer leaves out a couple of small facts like the time it took these early trips the St Roch for instance it's second trip through in 1944 was considered much faster than its first, the second trip only took 28 months, hardly a sail straight through.

A question a few weeks ago made a similar attempt claiming Amundsen sailed through in 1906 but leaving out the fact it took him three years to get through. Attempts to get through the NW passage date back at least 2 hundred years in 1845 Franklin and his entire party were lost, trying.

The NW passage has reached the stage were it is possible to go straight through in a few days unlike previous passages were it has taken months, weeks or even years to get through previous attempts usually wintered over somewhere on the way or were accompanied by icebreakers which use huge amount of fuel and make it un-financial as a commercial shipping route.

Answer 12

it is significant. But the denialists don't care. They didn't take an unbiased examination of the facts to reach their positions and they won't take one to change their positions either. The same people who think evolution is "just a theory" without even understanding it, are the same people who will fall for oil funded right wing thinktank talking points on global warming that are rejected by almost every real climate scientist who has studied the issue in detail.

Answer 13

Firstly this hasnt been caused by global warming, firstly because its happened during a particuarly cold year (based on mean global temps from say Hadley), and secondly because unusually warm currents have been passing through the area. The reasons for this are little understood. Ice melt is triggered by warmer seas not air temp, and the sea takes hundreds of years to respond to any warming.

Some scientists also believe that the vikings used to navigate these passages in the past back when it was warmer than today during the Holocene Optimum.

And its hardly a crisis, the melting water doesnt raise sea levels, its merely left over ice from the ice age that has been slowly retreating for thousands of years. Its a natural process which we have no control over and it doesnt detrimentally effect us (yet) so why the fuss?

Its a case of reporting stories that scare us

See the NIPCC Final Report for information. They do not use model projections as they are meaningless. I build hydraulic and hydrogical models so I know a model can be manipulated to say anything, it doesnt make them right. If I showed you a model suggesting people wearing denim contributed to global warming would you believe me because the model said so? Besides, the IPCC models didnt predict this happening yet even with a doubling of co2. You could argue that shows the effect is worse or the models are meaningless, or its just a natural phenonomen.

If you support the AGW theory the onus in on you to provide evidence (models dont count) as the IPCC have not yet found proof of a link between man made co2 and the warming trend experianced over the last centuary. The evidence of co2 warming the climate isnt there either. Skpetics merely remind people that it is an un-proven theory and further research needs to be done. I dont suggest the theory is completely wrong, only it needs proving.

Finding graves under the permafrost in greenland is better evidence than a fudged model projection or 30 years of data.

If you look at sea ice in August 2008 with August 1998, you will see there appears to be more ice now than there was 10 years ago.

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test...

And its up compared to last year (which was particularly low):

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test...

Answer 14

This is what you can expect from people who have never opened a history book let alone studied it. There have been hundreds of ships that have traversed them both ways in the 30s and 40s especially. Viking and Inuit records make it clear they used the arctic to go both ways from Norway and Denmark to Greenland. It is only those who either never took history are failed it that would even pretend this is something new and special. During a major part of the MWP the Arctic Ocean was virtually ice free a large part of the year. I do not know who you get your information from but they really need to do better research before making such uneducated claims because the Arctic has been virtually ice free in summer during at least 5 warming periods in the last 10,000 years and twice in the last 2,000. This is very well documented.