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Impassable Northwest Passage Open For First Time In History

Posted by Zonk on from the is-it-warm-in-here-or-is-it-just-me dept.

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.'"

4 of 528 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cooler! (eh, ok, perhaps *warmer*...) by Kwirl · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    So just because this guy looks at real-world economic implications of a problem instead of jumping on an 'al gore is right!' bandwagon, the comment was modded to 'troll' - that's some kind of wrong there, somehow.

  2. You can't prove THAT by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    You said I am God.

    I don't think so.

    God and I were having bacon cheese burgers at Hooters the other day, and He told me He doesn't have a Slashdot account. Why would He lie to me?

    Then I told him a ribald joke that He hadn't heard before, and he snorted milkshake out his nose.

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  3. Re:Maybe... by ravenshrike · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Congrats, you've just described every fucking human on the face of the bloody planet. How does it feel to take home the title of Captain Fucking Obvious. We're all ignorant enough to qualify for that, and if you think otherwise you're a deluded, small-minded idiot.

  4. Re:By years of study in the 30s by Eiron · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Yeah. If I was talking about ice volume, it is a big change. Too bad the thread was concerning the Northwest Passage.
     
    Non ice-breaker traversals of the NW passage -
    10 years ago: If you planned it right and went during the summer you probably made it.
    This year: If you planned it right and went during the summer you probably made it.
    Wow. What a huge, mind boggling difference. I bow to your superior intellect.
     
    Hey, why don't you post some quotes from the article summary at me to show me how wrong I was about my interpretation of TFA in regards to the navigability of the passage, you know, since that's what I was talking about. Ass.

    --
    Apathy; it does a body good.