Impassable Northwest Passage Open For First Time In History

An anonymous reader writes "The Northwest Passage, a normally ice-locked shortcut between Europe and Asia, is now passable for the first time in recorded history reports the European Space Agency. Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said in the article: 'We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3 million sq km which is about 1 million sq km less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006. There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq km per year on average, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is extreme.'"

Comments

Roald Amundsen

[imaginaryelf]

The Northwest passage was first traversed in 1903 by that famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. This was no small feat given the technology available at the turn of the century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen

By years of study in the 30s

[benhocking]

Are you referring to the 1530s and Hernán Cortés? You're jumping the gun a little — it wasn't until 1576 that Martin Frobisher first tried to find the Northwest Passage. Of course, you could be referring to the 1630s as several attempts were made after this to find this passage that did not exist. Perhaps (but surely not) you're conflating the (prior lack of) existence of the Northwest Passage with the satellite record — which only stretches back about 30 years or so. Still, we know that the Northwest Passage has not been passable for well over 400 years.

Now, sarcasm aside, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't agree with the scientific consensus on global warming. You no doubt extol the virtues of having an open mind and being skeptical. Has it occurred to you that the scientists are just as likely to have underestimated our impact as to overestimated it? In fact, evidence suggests that, being the conservative people that scientists are (not in the political sense, mind you), scientists have repeatedly underestimated our impacts. That doesn't mean that certain non-scientists aren't greatly exaggerating things, but I'm guessing (again) that it's the mainstream science view that you're taking umbrage with.

Slightly misunderstanding the story

[benhocking]

He didn't sail it in 1905, he traversed it (through various means) between 1903 and 1905. It was not an open passage, however.

And that the Vikings were sailing it sometime between 1200 and 1500 A.D.

Now that's a new one! Do you mean they reached Newfoundland (not news, I think most historians believe this) or that there's "evidence" that they traversed the NW Passage to Asia? If the latter, I'd suggest you use your skeptics eye with respect to that "evidence".

Re:it's 1550 AD in your alternate universe?

[at_18]

Explorers looked for northwest passage from 1400s to 1900

And didn't found it.

in 1906 Roald Amunsen navigated the passage in an ice-fortified ship

Funny that it took him two years (mostly spent with his ship blocked by ice) and several dogsleds. That's not my idea of "passage".