You really do need to change the title of this web page.

The USA National Snow and Ice Data center noted that the summer of 2008 is likely a record minimum for arctic sea ice volume, in addition to being the 2nd lowest surface extent on record. That old La Nina she ain’t what she used to be. Even the La Nina cold end of the oscillation can hardly make a dint in the relentless warming of the arctic.

Antarctic ice extent has been below average since July, and has been declining since the beginning of September.

Pretty hard to argue with the observed fact that climate is warming, but some folks still do. I wonder if they have some sort of affiliation with the flat earth society.

REPLY: The title was correct at the time it was written, thus will remain unchanged. We don’t do revisionist history here. And no were aren’t part of the flat earth society, your comment is juvenile, but typical for persons such as your self that demand others change their views (or writings) for them. 2008 arctic sea ice extent came out above 2007, by 9%, the season is starting again, 2009 will be even more ice.

But actually, one can’t say either way. Saying “for the first time in history” gives an entirely false impression of extent of knowledge. Informative qualifiers are necessary, sayeth the history biz.

Same with sunspots and hurricanes. In the Good Old Days, many, if not most of them, went unreported (there being limited means with which to observe them and less rigor in recording them). Unless one wants to reduce measurements to contemporary means, comparison is meaningless (and even then, highly problematic).

Would the Canadian Merchant Marine (had there been one in 1000 AD) have declared the NW passage “open” during the MWP? Maybe. Maybe not. Quien sabe?

Maybe it is just me, but that sounds like a theory without any facts to support it. If the facts don’t fit your theory perhaps you should find another which matches observed facts.

This web page needs a new title. The Canadian Ice Service declared Parry Channel and McClure Strait Navigable by non ice-breaking ships on 2008 Sept 4. Second time in History, and the second year in a row. It has cleared even more in the last week and the melt hasn’t stopped yet.

Vikings never made it much farther west than Greenland in the Medieval warm period. A few artifacts have been found a bit of the way along the Coast.

Asian artifacts such as coins show up along the west coast, but not in the arctic coast going east to Hudson Bay.

No evidence of sea traffic either direction before 1906. There was a lot of wealth in Asia which Europeans sought to reach by sailing the arctic for the past 5 centuries without making it through the ice. Now clear sailing in the arctic is becoming a predictable arctic event.

The Inuit have been observing arctic weather as a matter of life and death for a millenium. Their oral tradition includes years without summers, but no summers without ice.

British Navy expeditions searching for the doomed Franklin expedition didn’t put much faith in native accounts of what happened to the crew of the ships, but the native descriptions of cannibalism among the despairing sailors were accurate.

Archaeological evidence gives good insight into the Inuit lifestyle from the time the arrived in the arctic around the year 900 Common Era.

Well, sure, but that was the Little Ice Age.

There were a couple of crossings in the 40s, IIRC, but I don’t know which passage they used.

We simply do not know the future of Arctic ice. We are still spitballing over the effects of particulates which are said to cause anything from 20% to 90+% of Arctic melt (depending on whether you use NASA or skeptic sources) and have nothing directly to do with CO2. We don’t even have decent surface stations up there (and satellites can’t cover it either).

I wouldn’t be investing in NW Passage, Inc., just yet.

It is amusing to see the unfounded speculation about the deep water NW passage opening in previous years, before 2007. Never happened, at least not anytime in the previous 5 centuries.

Sooo, it could have happened before all this “unprecedented catastrophic warming”…

The NE passage along Russia opened earlier.

It is amusing to see the unfounded speculation about the deep water NW passage opening in previous years, before 2007. Never happened, at least not anytime in the previous 5 centuries. The Parry Passage got it’s name long before Amundsen made the first ever transit of the southern, shallow water NW passage from 1903 to 1906. He only made it part way each summer before ice locked up his ship again.

Apart from submarines, every transit has been recorded. There aren’t a lot of them, but the number is increasing every decade as the ice thins out and disappears from more of the arctic seas every year.
http://benmuse.typepad.com/arctic_economics/2008/07/northwest-passage-transits.html
http://www.arctic.gov/files/AMTW_book.pdf

Apart from saving 6 mega meters in travel distance between Europe and Asia the NW passage will be able to be sailed by very large bulk carriers which don’t fit in the Panama or Suez canal, or even in the English Channel.

Reply (from JG): Please watch the name calling. As you can see from the edited comment, your point still comes across.

From the NSIDC noting the open NW passage and the thickness of the ice in general.

This link notes the open passages. If you click around on that site, you will find other interesting pieces of data gathered by the folks who patrol these waters.

This is the daily Arctic satellite photo. It shows the open NW Passage. It does not open for more than a couple of weeks.

http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/FECN14CWIS/20080815000000_FECN14CWIS_0003916089.txt

“This
will gradually clear the remaining ice in the Northwest Passage and
provide an open water route across the Northwest Passage for a third
year in row towards the end of the month.”

The month they are referring to, is August. As you can see, they are correct. Now, it should stay open for a few weeks, more or less.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080301faessay87206-p10/scott-g-borgerson/arctic-meltdown.html

“As soon as marine insurers recalculate the risks involved in these voyages, trans-Arctic shipping will become commercially viable and begin on a large scale.”

This is a graph of this year’s ice melt compared to other years and to the average year.

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

The Amundsen route of NW passage has opened several times this past century, but not the Parry passage. It is important to make the distinction.

If you are claiming I am wrong, maybe you could give me the dates when the Parry passage was open previously?

For 500 years Europeans have been trying to sail through the NW passage, finding heavy ice even at the end of summer. Now the deep water, international passage has melted free of ice 2 years in a row.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_concentration_hires.png

Their graphic comparing the 2007 season to the 1979 to 2000 average shows that on average melting stopped at the end of August prior to 2000. Now it continues for several weeks into September.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

REPLY: Yes but this is nothing unique. The NW passage has opened several times this past century.

The Northern Sea Route (aka Northeast Passage, above Siberia) appears that it may soon open as well.

Now, the next question is, will the North Pole be ice-free this year? I doubt it, although that also depends on how extensively you define the area as “the North Pole”… does anyone know the official definition?

With the most recent increase in melting in early August, it certainly seems possible for either the record minimum arctic ice level to be broken again, or for the date of the arctic ice minimum to be delayed, or both.

It will be interesting to see how things look around Sep 15th.

A) On the topic of the “Northwest Passage” being free of ice so as to be navigable, as happened last year at the end of August:
1) In 1906 Amundsen took over two years to make the trip, and was stuck in the ice twice. NOT ‘commercially navigable’.
2) The RCMP St. Roch did it in 28 months in 1940 – it was a small ‘ice-fortified’ schooner; it made the return trip in 86 days, a record, in 1944, after ‘extensive upgrades. So a small ice-fortified ship with extensive upgrades made it in 86 days. That does not indicate ‘commercially navigable’.
3) Since then, we have ice-breaker accompanied Navy ships, and small shallow-draft sailboats and yachts making the transit… still, not even close to what would be considered ‘commercially navigable’ for cargo ships.
4) Even though last year may have seen a ‘commercially navigable’ channel, GW (or AGW) doesn’t mean it will happen this year or next; only that the trendline is towards higher probabilities. As someone said, no shipping company is going to stay poised at Baffin Bay waiting for it to open – yet. But if the trend of longer and longer periods of a ‘commercially navigable’ NWP occurs, you can bet that is exactly what they will do. Time will tell.

B) On the topic of the North Pole itself being ice-free – all the articles say, “Yes, the conditions are good for it to occur this year, but it’s no big deal”. Anyone, whether they are alarmists, AGWers, deniers, skeptics, sloppy journalists or excitable headline-writers, who is making a big deal over whether or not 90N is ice-free does not understand its relative insignificance. It’s just one tiny data point in the entire Arctic Ocean, which by happenstance of wind and weather may or may not be ice-bound, ice-free, or some of both at any given moment.

C) On the concept that “If the North Pole at 90N is ice-free, you can’t tell me 80N will have ice”, I most certainly can. The North Pole is NOT the same as the Arctic Ocean. Ice floats. It moves. Wind piles up ice to be thicker and less likely to melt in many areas other than the North Pole. Again, whether or not 90N itself is partially or even ‘completely’ ice-free is not particularly significant.

D) On the idea that there is more ice-cover than last year… well, duh. Last year was a record low… GW (or AGW) does not predict every year will establish successively new lows; climate just doesn’t work that way. The trendline may lead to lower and lower records, eventually… but not necessarily every year. Having said that:
1) It does indeed look like better than even odds that we WILL have a new record low this year.
2) …in SEPTEMBER… which is when the low always occurs! The fact that the ice cover this year, in July, is still above the record low of last year and below the average for the last 30 years doesn’t really tell us much. AGWers have no business making predictions about any particular year, but neither do the skeptics… both show ignorance, or worse. And, stating that there is a 59% chance of a new record low is not a prediction; it’s an effort to quantify what physics indicates is most likely to occur.
3) Not to mention that “total ice” is not the same as “total ice cover”. Ice thickness is obviously very important as well.

To me, it looks like the NWP will indeed open up before August 21st – IOW earlier than last year… while it appears that the NEP may very well stay blocked. I obviously could be wrong; but let’s just check back on August 20, OK?

http://www.uphere.ca/node/220

You state, “But ice loss is accelerating nonetheless.”

Is it? Please note the picture of the three submarines at the pole in 1987.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes it is even worth a thousand posts. It may even be worth a thousand peer-reviewed studies.