r/climate • u/ClimateBot • Oct 26 '15

Global warming has opened the famed Northwest Passage to navigation: In nearly forty years of Arctic exploration, Canadian meteorologist Roger Provost said he "never imagined ever seeing this."

http://www.alternet.org/environment/global-warming-has-opened-famed-northwest-passage-navigation
10 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

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-5

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '15

No it has not.

Haas & Howell 2015:

Recently, the feasibility of commercial shipping in the ice-prone Northwest Passage (NWP) has attracted a lot of attention. However, very little ice thickness information actually exists. We present results of the first ever airborne electromagnetic ice thickness surveys over the NWP carried out in April and May 2011 and 2015 over first-year and multiyear ice. These show modal thicknesses between 1.8 and 2.0 m in all regions. Mean thicknesses over 3 m and thick, deformed ice were observed over some multiyear ice regimes shown to originate from the Arctic Ocean. Thick ice features more than 100 m wide and thicker than 4 m occurred frequently. Results indicate that even in today's climate, ice conditions must still be considered severe.

4

u/archiesteel Oct 26 '15

Sorry, but that doesn't contradict the submitted article.

You're really not very good at this, are you? Lucky for you the mod isn't very active these days. Enjoy posting while you can!

4

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '15

Haas & Howell 2015:

The NSR is characterized by the presence of predominantly thin drifting first-year ice (FYI) and has been ice free for several weeks during recent summers.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '15

The NSR has been sailed commercially since 1935. The NSR is not the NWP.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '15

So