NW passage not so busy after all

Cosmology has “dark matter” and “dark energy”. Climate scientology has Trenberth’s “dark heat”, also known as “in the pipeline”. No doubt the abundant but undetectable vessels taking the northwest passage will be classified as “dark shipping”. 🙂

Does the truth really matter to these morons? A young TV news announcer at my local station introduced a comment about the weather this morning with, “Since it it heating up everywhere in the world,….”
I don’t remember the rest of her statement. It’s discouraging; I don’t see how anyone can fight such stupidity.

I think those “dark ships” are sometimes referred to as “nuclear submarines.”
Mark

jbird says:
July 11, 2012 at 6:43 pm

Does the truth really matter to these morons? A young TV news announcer at my local station introduced a comment about the weather this morning with, “Since it it heating up everywhere in the world,….”
I don’t remember the rest of her statement. It’s discouraging; I don’t see how anyone can fight such stupidity.

You can fight such stupidity, but don’t expect to win.
The other day a good-looking but otherwise lacking commentator on the Global TV news hour opined on the rolling power blackouts we experienced in Alberta on Monday, caused by the highly improbable coincidence of six major power generating stations (four were coal-fired and two were natural-gas-fired) having to be shut down for various reasons. She observed that the problems had been compounded by, and I kid you not, “windy turbines” (because it so happened that along with the hot weather there was an absence of wind and therefore no wind-power generation, but she did not mention that, even though the lack of wind-power generation accounted only for an infinitesimally small fraction of the total power shortfall).
What is the use of fighting? Stupidity is a gift by the gods and should not be punished.

Lol, Robert, I hope you gave them a heads up! Last year, I did a post using the ship tracker, and it was down for days. ……. oops.

I can’t resist throwing this little tidbit into the discussion. Apparently the huge ice melt isn’t cooperating according to Shell Oil. See the link here. http://www.worldoil.com/Ice_delays_Shell_Alaska_drilling.html Story was from July 9th. See bottom for date line.

jbird said:
July 11, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Does the truth really matter to these morons? A young TV news announcer at my local station introduced a comment about the weather this morning with, “Since it it heating up everywhere in the world,….”
I don’t remember the rest of her statement. It’s discouraging; I don’t see how anyone can fight such stupidity.
———————-
Against stupidity, even the gods contend in vain.
-Friedrich Schiller

“Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.” –Robert A. Heinlein

“You can lead a person to knowledge…. but you can’t make them think.”
MtK

It is a modern day Marie Celeste – not only are all the passengers missing but ships are missing as well!
(It is worse than we thought!!)

This nonsense about the Northwest Passage is just that – nonsense. Even if the Northwest Passage were completely free of ice year round it could not compete with the Northeast Passage for two important reasons – one, the distance to the Far Eastern markets from Europe through the NE Passage is shorter: two, the NW passage is uncharted – that is, the risk of running aground is greater. The NE passage has been regularly traversed since the 1920’s with the aid of Soviet (and later Russian) icebreakers and is extensively charted. The NW passage has had no commercial traffic pass through it on a regular basis and has several incidents of vessels grounding because of the poor charts.
Encyclopedia Britannica
“In the 1920s the newly established Soviet Union began developing the Northern Sea Route as a shipping lane, and domestic cargo ships started using portions of it during the summer months in the 1930s; the first successful one-season through-transit of the passage was by a Soviet icebreaker in 1934. Portions of the route were used between 1942 and 1945 during World War II by ships carrying Allied supplies from cities on the U.S. West Coast to ports in northern Siberia, notably Tiksi at the eastern edge of the Lena River delta. Domestic regional shipping grew after the war, made easier by improved navigational aids, a growing fleet of icebreakers to allow passage through the sea ice, and a lengthening shipping season—the latter having become year-round in the western section by 1980.
In the late 1960s the Soviet Union made some overtures toward allowing foreign ships to use the Northern Sea Route, but they did not officially open it to foreign shipping until 1991. However, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union late that year, Russia subsequently experienced years of economic slowdowns and political instability, which negatively affected the operation of the passage. Shipping through it thus declined into the early years of the 21st century, after which domestic use of it began to increase again. Interest by foreign shippers in using the passage also grew at that time as the Russians introduced more sophisticated icebreakers and made improvements to port facilities along the route—aided also by a general trend toward longer ice-free periods each year. The first full traverse of the route by foreign merchant ships occurred in 2009. In 2010 a passenger ferry and a tanker ship (both Russian) each became the first of its kind to successfully navigate the passage’s entire length.”
Interestingly, from a historical perspective, the German Commerce Raider ‘Komet’ sailed through the NE Passage into the Pacific with the aid of Soviet icebreakers in 1940 and Soviet warships frequently used this passage to travel from Murmansk to Vladivostok. Domestic Russian commercial traffic is quite extensive and international traffic is modest but growing.

LOL. Everyone who does not have to transit the NW passage seems to know an awful lot about it.

Does anyone know if the gps constellation is reliable in the arctic ocean?

Here in France they just keep prattling on in the daily weather forecast at every weather event about ‘le rechauffement climatique’ It’s like nothing ever happened the last decade. In France it’s real and no MSM ever questions it.
No wonder there are a lot of ‘stupid’ reporters around. If you don’t look for it yourself you won’t find anything saying otherwise. And since most Frenchies consider English the language of the devil they have precious little alternate sources.

Mark T says (July 11, 2012 at 6:53 pm): ‘I think those “dark ships” are sometimes referred to as “nuclear submarines.”’
That raises an interesting point. Is the northwest passage navigable by submerged submarines? If so, is it shorter than the polar route?

steve r asks
Does anyone know if the gps constellation is reliable in the arctic ocean?
it is pinpoint accurate at 70 degrees, and reliable too.

Walter H Schneider and jbird – totally agree – but the problem is, these morons are on the TELLY so everyone (apart from us, of course) thinks they must be telling the truth..!

Steve R says:
July 11, 2012 at 11:58 pm
Does anyone know if the gps constellation is reliable in the arctic ocean?
Too late late to ask now, you should have thought of that before planning your expedition:
http://www.arcticrow.com/
🙂
Seriously, it is the Global Positioning System and the satellite orbits are designed to allow a minimum of 4 simultaneously in view with adequate geometry for accurate fixing anywhere on the surface of the earth.
Short answer = yes it is reliable anywhere on earth.

Ship tracking websites in general display only ships that have their AIS transponder on, and have an AIS recieving station within range (up to 50 nm) to pick up the signal. Coverage along the NW passage is poor to nonexistent.
Shipping through the NW passage is nonetheless very, very sparse. I did not find fresh stats but abt. 30 ships a year is a good guess. I live by the Northern Baltic Sea myself and we have more ships going by every afternoon.

PhilMB says:
July 12, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Apologies for biting your head off!
The site is a good find. I have used sailwx before but was not aware of marinetraffic. So thanks.

i don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade here, but the idea that any passage through the Arctic (either the NWP or the NEP/Northern Route) will be used for Commercial Shipping is not based on whether or not there is any ice present, it is based on the economic and political viability of such an enterprise. The Soviets used the Northern Routs (NEP) despite the presence of vast amounts of ice – they used their very powerful ice breakers to continue opening passages through the ice in order to maintain a political presence in northeastern Siberia and to allow transit of their warships from Europe to the Pacific. The present Russian regime is doing the same thing but for economic reasons – they are still providing icebreakers to support transit of Foreign vessels and they are charging for the expense. As long as it is more profitable for the shippers to use this route while paying the Russian charges they will do so. Canada also has the capability of using their ice-breakers to provide year-round transit of the NWP and they have had for decades. The fact that Canada has not done so is because of the higher costs associated with providing safe passage at Western standards. That is to say the costs associated with providing extensive accurate charts of the NWP, as well as the setting up of rescue stations and refueling ports do not justify the expenditure of funds based on the Canadian Government’s expectations. That, coupled with the facts that the Northern Route (NEP) is shorter and maintained means that I doubt very much that significant use of the NWP for passage for commercial traffic will be realized in our lifetime regardless of whether or not the Arctic becomes ice free.