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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.'"
I'm sure the Northwest Passage Cruise Line vacation scam spams will begin soon.
that prime waterfront property in Kansas....
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
What could cause this?
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
Plus, those big ships'll have a shorter route on which to belch their nasty so-called "greenhouse gasses" (and will, therefore, not pollute as much!); this could be the best thing to happen to the environment in 30 years!!
Where is Linux gonna get a new mascot when their home is gone?
-1 wrong pole
Table-ized A.I.
all this global warming, freak weather and now the northwest passage is open? I'm losing my faith in coincidences here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He
"Former submarine commander Gavin Menzies in his book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World claims that several parts of Zheng's fleet explored virtually the entire globe, discovering West Africa, North and South America, Greenland, Iceland, Antarctica and Australia (except visiting Europe). Menzies also claimed that Zheng's wooden fleet passed the Arctic Ocean. However none of the citations in 1421 are from Chinese sources and scholars in China do not share Menzies's assertions."
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Because trying to get through it is a rite of passage for any competent explorer.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Seriously, you have noticed that the world isn't flat haven't you? When planes fly they go north because that creates the shortest route (the grand circle) hence the reason that when flying to Asia the planes often go from Europe straight over the north pole. In terms of mileage this is a massive change (think multiples not percentages) over the existing routes and is the reason why the EU and US are already pushing for it to be an international (rather than Canadian) trade route.
So yes it looks similar on Google maps, but it looks completely different on Google Earth.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
See http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ for the details.
Swings and roundabouts.
Maybe it a troll because there is no -1 "Ignorant enough to kill us all" moderation available?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Let the battle begin......Canada has already asserted complete rights to the passage, Russia and the United States want it to be international waters. It matters because this passage is incredibly lucrative for the months of the year it's open.
Here: http://www.marine.fm/en/NWP1.htm
Not too sure if it's the same exact route but it's been traveled as far back as 1903.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
It might be a good idea to get your facts straight before commenting.
Yes, some glaciers are shrinking. But some that have been CLAIMED to be shrinking have actually been growing. And other glaciers are growing, as well.
Yes, the earth has been warming. But it has been warming pretty steadily for the last 6,000 years, and it has been warmer in the past -- even during recorded history -- than it is now. And even though it is getting warmer, there is actually very little evidence that WE have been causing it.
So it might be a good idea to brace for warmer weather, but there is little cause for alarm. In the past warmer weather has meant higher rainfall, lusher crops, and you might even see more rainforest.
To turn your virgin children into islamofascists. I'm sure I saw this on Fox. No no no a thousand times no. If Global Warming were caused by man God would have given us gills.
Well, considering the years of study of the Northwest Passage are in the 30's, I'm sure someone will get a little hyperbolic with their rhetoric.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
So yes it looks similar on Google maps, but it looks completely different on Google Earth.
Try Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion map for an interesting view of the world...
This guy's the limit!
Humanity has been truly recording history for how long? And has been trying to get through the NW Passage for how little a time compared to that? And has been able to actually measure the ice differential for even shorter than that? It's only remotely extreme with such a small geologic data set. It amazes me how people automatically characterize conditions they haven't seen before as extreme.
This is so wrong I don't know where to begin.
Polar bears have historically required pack ice to breed and hunt. As the ice melts more and more bears drown. Their numbers are in decline. Officially they're listed as vulnerable, but I believe later this year that status will be downgraded to endangered. Hopefully they'll be able to adapt their behavior to the new, warmer conditions of the arctic. But I wouldn't expect that.
There's plenty of scientific research on this subject. Granted, Wikipedia isn't the best reference. But it will give you pointers to look further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear
The blue is growing. White is neutral. All else is shrinking. Notice the LARGE amount of Brown. Just out of curiosity, what has been CLAIMED to be shrinking, but is growing? And do you have some real links, say science mag?
As to you saying that there is little cause for alarm, I would like some links from those in the know. Or are you just BSing like many others here?
Yes, and if you read it, you will see that since the 1970s the population has risen from 5k to 25k. This during a period of alleged global warming. Their numbers are not in decline.
This laptop is powered entirely by my own sense of self-satisfaction.
Congratulations on your Mac purchase :-)
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
That regional changes in weather patterns, including temperature, occur, is not disputed. That we are in an actual warming phase - globally - is in question and that it is caused by Al Gore jetting around in a private plane is an article of faith.
Explorers looked for northwest passage from 1400s to 1900, mapping the artic area. in 1906 Roald Amunsen navigated the passage in an ice-fortified ship. Been done with other such ships since then.
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.
Ben Hocking
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The answer is also poorly worded. It's the Great Circle, not the grand circle.
Read that article carefully to see exactly how he "traversed" the Northwest Passage. It wasn't open then, and hasn't been for at least 400 years (and probably an awful lot longer) — until now.
Ben Hocking
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The first attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage happened well over 400 years ago (did your school not teach this in history class?), and several attempts have been made since then. This is the first time that it's been open as far as we know — and not for a lack of looking for it. I love the uncertainty and doubt, though — perhaps you can find some fear now?
Ben Hocking
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Nobody claimed that Amundsen has not done it back then. The claim is that the passage now is practicable in one go, because the whole passage is open. Amundsen needed several years to make it all the way through in bits and pieces. And he couldn't have done it in any larger ship than the one he used, due to the water water being as shallow as 3 feet. Not exactly an economically viable solution.
Linux user since early January 1992.
That puts it in perspective. Read up on Roald Amundsen's trip — that will help you get some perspective.
Ben Hocking
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... massive change (think multiples not percentages) over the existing routes and is the reason why the EU and US are already pushing for it to be an international (rather than Canadian) trade route.And why should Canada's sovereign territory being pieced apart? If it suddenly became globally advantageous to cross shipments through most of the US, the EU and the rest of the world would be perfectly justified in making it international territory as well?
You people can just fly/ship your people/things with our blessings (and taxes), the land and airspace belongs to us.
Read the story. It wasn't just a matter of different technology. The passage didn't exist — he forced his way through.
Ben Hocking
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Try reading up on the history of the Northwest Passage. Sure, we've only had a complete meter by meter map for 30ish years, but we've known about the lack of a Northwest Passage for centuries.
Ben Hocking
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Requiring an icebreaker to get through means that the passage wasn't really open (not that you're disputing that, but some on this thread can't quite seem to grasp the difference here).
Ben Hocking
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Six months to cross the Atlantic in 1903?!!!
In 1900 it took about a week. In fact, the record for a passenger steamer i 1900 was 5 days and 7 hours (The Hamburg American liner Deutschland)... Not six months...
Heck, it only took Christopher Columbus five weeks to cross the Atlantic in 1492!!!
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
You make a good post and get intelligent responses. Yet some moderator thinks it is not politically correct and mods you a troll.
I get moderator points quite frequently and recently there are few occasions where I am not using some of them to reverse stupid moderation! Gawd moderators, Get real? Why do you want to suppress the contrarian point of view? Is it against your religeon or something?
The truth with regard to global warming is that planetary climate change is due to a number of factors and these include the distribution of the continents, the amount of land at high elevation (Ie mountains and plateaus like the Colorado and Tibetian), ocean currents an connections between oceans like for instance the Isthmus of Panama.
CO2 levels are not linked to climate change in the geological record. One would think they would be if CO2 is a significant factor.
Yet of those who wish for a change in the way we live and use the non-renewable resources of Mother earth... and recognize that burning fossil fuels is both unsustainable and does add CO2 to the atmosphere... well - for these people yes, it would be correct to recognize that if we adopt a sustainable life style then at the same time we might reduce CO2 emissions.
Yet - this observation does not mean that climate change if it exists is necessarily linked to Co2 emissions.
I will say this. I think those who feel this way are going to get their wish.
The best information I have is that the world's oil production peaked in September of last year. Is this information published? Well - not really. The media has not picked up on it. Why? Because you don't get good information from the media.
My sources are very reliable. But I will caution that we need to go 5 more years past peak before we can confidently look in the mirror and say we are past peak. Even then, something unexpected could happen like finding that oil is abiogenic and there is an ocean of it sitting under say the Alberta Tar sands.
If the preliminary data is correct and we are past peak then those who want us to drive less and emit less CO2 will get their wish. This still doesn't mean that CO2 driven climate change exists.
I will point out that anyone who is really concerned about CO2 emissions should open the walls of their house and increase the insulation to about R50 in the walls and R70 in the ceiling and that they can do this during construction for about $1 buk per square foot of building envelop.
Until I see people do this I will not listen to their concerns... why? Because unless someone is concerned enough to actually do what is in their power to do - then I do not think they are much more than a hypocrite. Sorry - but that is just the way it is.
End of rant.
Now if we could get rid of this bad moderation.
The polar bear is Ursus maritimus and the grizzly bear is Ursus arctos horribilis. I think you're confusing the polar bear with the brown bear, Ursus arctos, of which the grizzly bear is a subspecies. There is one recorded instance of these two (distinct) species breeding in the wild, and that individual was shot and killed. It was considered quite the oddity, if you recall the story.
Ben Hocking
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It's true that the population of polar bears has increased in the past 30 years -- but as the article points out, the pack ice has been pretty reliable for those 30 years, too. The bears weren't particularly bothered as the average ice thickness decreased from 3.1 metres in the 1960s and 70s to 1.8 metres in the 1990s. They were still able to go out on the ice and hunt. But the ice has continued to get thinner, and now it is disappearing altogether for parts of the year. For the past 30 years that you speak of, the bears were able to hunt and increase their numbers, but *now* they face a real problem. So people are concerned, not for what happened in the past 30 years, but what will happen in the *next* 30 as their former hunting grounds disappear.
If there was anyway to definitely prove it. We don't know anything about the entire passage prior to 400 years ago, but people have been interested in trying to find a way through continuously since then. If the passage in the last 400 years was ever as wide as it is now, it would have been easily spotted. Have you seen the satellite pictures? Here's a source that has a history for this summer.
Ben Hocking
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Because of the ice currently above sea level in Greenland and Antarctica. Melting sea ice leads to higher temperatures in the air above the ocean. These higher temperatures lead to more melting in onshore ice, like the ica cap in Antarctica.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Actually, there's a lot of evidence (ice core samples and such) that the arctic hasn't been warm enough for a passage to form for at least 100,000 years.
The scary thing is that losing the polar ice cap has effects way beyond creating a new shipping route. All that ice reflects a lot of heat back into space. It's one of many effects (methane outgassing from melting Siberian tundra; carbon released when drought causes forests to burn) that create a positive feedback look in the global warming trend. In theory, these feedback loops could get so severe they won't stop until the oceans boil. OK, that's pretty unlikely. But it wouldn't have to be nearly so severe an effect to do something relatively minor, but quite nasty. Like wipe out our food supply.
In other words, it's a mistake to phrase the global warming debate in terms of compelling evidence. We can't know for sure — and that should make us more scared, not less. To quote Dirty Harry: You have to ask yourself if you're feeling lucky. Well, do you, punk?
You are jesting, surely.
If you had any idea about the condition of the merchant ships and the way their crews are hired, you would have never said that.
Deep sea marine merchant fleets are governed by something which can only be described as a "law of the jungle", where the disposable crews (literally! I heard stories of men simply dumped in the next harbour, regardless of location, after losing arms or legs in accidents on the ship, without any concern about their means of medical care or transportation. Insurance? You gotta be kidding!) and rust-covered ships worked until they literally fall apart at sea, after which the owner simply collects more then their value, having shrewdly adjusted the insurance payout in anticipation. Any attempts at regulation usually result in the owners re-registering all of their ships in places in which bribery, corruption and non-existant regulation make up for an "ideal" merchant shipping home port. What did you think the words "flag of convenience" mean? Ever notice that all of those ships in the news which broke up on some rocks are flying weird flags from strange places, even though they are clearly owned by western conglomerates?
Adding nuclear power to this mix would be truly suicidal.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Apparently, the south polar ice cap is the largest it's ever been since 1979, don't hear much about that. http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/a_new_record_for_antartic_total_ice_extent
I tried to moderate your comment "funny" but my mod points seemes to have disappeared between the time I loaded this article, and the time I hit "moderate".
Anyway: the Canadian claim on the arctic territories was never really accepted by most nations. It was simply never disputed because nobody gave a about who owned a bunch of frozen islands in the far north. Now that the ice is melting, EVERYONE is starting to care, and we Canadians, thanks to years of neglect, don't have any way of enforcing our claim. It's all well and good to say "we own this place, now pay us for going through!", but it takes the credible threat of force to be able to enforce such a statement. Don't expect anyone to take our claim seriously.
Actually, there is data going back thousands of years in the form of ice cores — or there used to be. Of course, these haven't been done along the entire passage, so it's easy to manufacture uncertainty and doubt in there, but you have to be a true believer to believe that it's ever been like it is now in the last several thousand years. I know you don't believe me, but do you think it's possible you'll be a little less skeptical next year if the Northwest Passage is open again? What if it opens up on an annual basis? Will you then acknowledge that this is at least unprecedented in the last 400+ years?
My problem is that I have a good memory. I remember people 20 years ago saying wait 20 years and then we'll see. Now you have people saying, wait 20 years and then we'll see. For some reason, I suspect you'll still have some people saying that 20 years hence, when the arctic sea ice is mostly gone (in the summer).
Ben Hocking
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Actually, having the Chinese, as well as all other nations, being well off frightens only the proponents of "globalization" (who are usually some variants of "conservative" these days - although any greed blinded individual will do) which hypocritically, depends on vast inequalities which can be exploited for profit.
Wealth and responsibility are not mutually exclusive.
The answer of course is to enable other nations to grow sustainable economies, centered around local products and services.
"Globalization" as it is envisioned and conducted at present is the bastard child resulting from an orgy of greed and colossal waste, orgy conducted with gleeful, utter abandon and contempt for the future generations.
It is the crowning achievement of the "I got mine, so Fuck You All!" world-view
To be fair, your point has one valid element: the Western working class is just as guilty of in this very attitude as the Western business elites, and so, by extension, also complicit in this. Only now do they realize the true implications of their short-sighted political apathy.
Ben Hocking
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You can't take the sky from me...
What specific ice core data suggests that the passage wasn't open in the Medieval Warm Period?
It's no mystery. It was a whole lot warmer in the last interglacial, 120kya, than any serious predictions for this one. The significantly warmer temps of the last interglacial are not in dispute. No "runaway global warming" ensued. Rather, an Ice Age ensued, just like after all the other interglacials.
Consider another glacier - a really big one with a lot of ice behind it and a large height difference and/or steep slopes. Something like this moves faster. When it gets warmer it will move faster again. These are the glaciers that are advancing.
Unfortuantely we have people that really just want to win an argument that just take the amount of advance and retreat of a lot of glaciers and average it without considering why. They are completely ignoring the temperature measurements in those locations since they are pretending to use a glacier as a thermometer instead of the real thermometers that may actually be there.
As for the warm is good argument - I recommend talking to a farmer. Whether it is a El Nino or La Nina effect in the Pacific in a paticular year is enough to drive farmers backrupt off the land in some areas - they know about warm weather in the wrong spot.
.....than the British explorers. The bowheads hang around the edge of the ice (partially so that they can escape from Killer whales whose large dorsal fins aren't favourable to icy conditions). It appears like the bowheads from the Beaufort and the ones from Baffin Bay were able to get together during that abnormally warm period of ~9,000 years ago, but since then they have been very distinct stocks.
Besides for seeing that the two stocks just haven't gotten it on over that time, scientists can reconstruct the ice extents based upon where they have found the whales remains along todays coastlines (the carcasses often became incorporated in what are today raised beaches and the permafrost has helped to preserve them).
http://www.pcsn.ca/pubs_2006/Fisher,%20F.%20et%20al,%20Natural%20variability%20of%20Arctic%20sea%20ice%20over%20the%20Holocene,%20EOS,%2087,%202006.pdf
Anyhow, I guess the two whale stocks will have some great stories to tell after all these years.
What you mean those boats registered to countries who don't even tough the ocean are flying the flag of convenience ! How dare you speak of that.
It's been done for years. And the scams that smugglers use is to change the flag and repaint the boats at sea based on where they are going.
For instance a freighter destine for Canada will have a friendly nations flag and registry info on board so as to avoid customs. They do it in the us as well since we only inspect roughly 9 % of cargo into the US.
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
Ben Hocking
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The thing is, we used to have things as crappy as China (or wherever) here in the USA - and nobody flipped a switch that made things the way they are now; it happened gradually over many decades. I am not an economist or an anthropologist to tell you why exactly things are they way they are, but there is currently great disparity in the value of people's time in different countries. People in the US and many other countries with high hourly wages use this to their advantage; to not do so would be economically irresponsible.
I suspect we can agree that the current situation can not last. It is not sustainable, for us or them. However, that does not mean drastic measures must be taken. Things tend to work themselves out, especially in the long term.
As time goes on there will be gradual changes in China and the rest of the world, and eventually the disparity we feel now will tend to balance itself out, in no small part because of the exploitation of the current discrepancy; invisible hand of the market and all that. The whole local products and services argument won't cut it: specialization is more efficient then subsistence, and specialization encourages/requires lively trade. Eventually, the world will act as a single economy, with wage equality and whatnot, and at that point "sustainable economies, centered around local products and services" will be unlikely unless you consider the entirety of human civilization "local".
Economic isolationism tends to slow the advancement of growing economies, and does nothing to resolve disparity in living conditions. The current incarnation of the global economy my seem, may even be, an orgy of waste and greed, but the long term result will not be the destruction of our respective economies or societies, but rather their fortification.
Unless we kill each other in a war; there is always that. But cheer up; we'll soon both be dead.
Apathy; it does a body good.
The battle for the internet's best made-up statistics is over, and you have won. Awesome, truly awesome.
"It was a whole lot warmer in the last interglacial, 120kya...balh, blah, blah"
It's not the temprature itself that people are concerned about (go back 250MYA and CO2 concentrations were 4X what they are now and the planet was 10C warmer. It's the unprecedented rate of change that is "unatural" and a "clear and present danger".
The melting of the North pole was predicted and it is now undeniably occuring, one of the predicted "flow on effects" of an ice free Artic ocean is desertification of midwest US ( modern humanity's "breadbasket"). Perhaps you would be happy to return to foraging for grubs and shellfish or hearding goats in an arid wasteland (re: middle east), me - I'm kinda fond of the idea of growing our staple diet in a predictable and sustainable manner. If you think discussing the possiblity of a global famine is hyperbowl then take a good look at what is happening to SE Australia (where I happen to live), if you prefer history then take a look at the "dustbowl" years in the US or the many cases where ancient civilizations crumbled due to rapidly changing environmental conditions. Not to mention global fisheries have been collapsing like dominoes since the 1980's....opps - I just did.
Currently the Artic is predicted to be ice free in 40-50yrs so (according to predictions) the US still has a while before it "dries up", but this year's data (to quote TFA) was "extreme". I have no idea what a 25% reduction from last years record low does to the statistical trend or the predictions of when (no longer "if") the Artic will become ice free in the summer. However using the figures from TFA, if the next three years are as "extreme" as this one then the ice will have receded into oblivion before kyoto even comes up for renewal in 2012.
"It's no mystery."
It is a huge mystery but it's not a total mystery thanks to thousands of scientists who have been very actively working on the broarder question of the "dynamic stablity" of the biosphere in general and climate in particular. Thanks to this large but much maligned group of boffins there have been huge strides in our knowledge over the last three decades (including the sources for your "facts"). Yet when the consensus predictions of these "grant seeking leaches" start occuring in front of our very eyes at a much more alarming rate there are still those who will brush it all aside with some self-serving babble about our distant ancestors who had not even developed language let alone a global econmy and infrastructure that is TOTALLY dependent on the predictability of annual weather patterns (ie:climate). Arguing about the exact definition of an "open" as it pertains to the N.W. passage is the preverbial arranging of deck chairs.
Disclaimer: Sorry to pick on you personally, please take it as a general comment about the level of anthropogenic arrogance on slashdot regarding AGW.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
That's not entirely true; globalization _does_ strive to level the economic playing field and certain areas of the world _are_ simply more suitable to do certain things with than others. It makes great sense to designate places of the world for certain types of production, given climate and presence of ore.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Bah! In my day we used to walk the Northwest passage, barefoot. Once I got three quarters of the way there, ran out of food had to turn round and go home. And it was uphill both ways.
At the bottom of the
Am an in awe of your grasp of the situation, specially when highlighted with such creative epithets. Now, do please explain how does this hypothetical fleet has its maintenance and hiring practices improved, given that vast majority of it is registered in, say, that bastion of high standards of regulation: Antigua, and owned by companies registered in, say, Dubai. For a bonus question: explain away your method of forcing the merchants to use the astronomically expensive (in relation to everything else) nuclear reactors followed by your gracing us with your enlightening views on the methods of securing the nuclear fuel and the ships themselves from falling into the hands of some bearded and beturbaned individuals with somewhat antisocial attitudes.
I am reeling under the assault of your great wit, so cleverly based upon words of "shit" and "pig". As to being blindly "grafted" on an aspect of reality, I am afraid I got you beat there, since your entire rant consists of "hypothetical" hot air, which does not even withstand most cursory of "hypothetical" searches for traces of common sense.
I swear /. does some weird things to my posts sometimes after I hit Submit! That was supposed to read "I am". Oh well.
If you go to the source, you can compare the southern and northern anomolies. Those graphs show that while the antarctic ice coverage is about 1.25 million square kms higher than the 1979-2000 mean, the artic ice coverage is over 2 million square kms lower than the 1979-2000 mean. The antarctic increase is not making up for the artic decrease: there is a net loss of ice worldwide. This data points to higher average temperatures and more extreme seasonal variations. Neither of those are good news.
Well that sounds good in theory, but it is not true in practice.
What actually happens is that as the living standards of the "target" of the products are very rapidly lowered (attendant with creation of astronomical and unsecured debt) and the living standards of the source are slowly (as slowly as one can manage as a matter of fact, as this reduces profits) raised. When that fails, the "source" is moved to yet another poor country, and the previous one simply abandoned. Ask those border-factory Mexicans, who were such gold makers for the corps in the 1980s, how they are doing to today...
Since there are very many potential "sources", the process can be repeated for several generations yet. Its bonus feature is an ability to destroy any worker's protections in the "target" countries, by beating the working class over their heads with demands to be more "flexible" and "competerive" with their "competiton" who gets paid $2 a week and has no rights or benefits. Since those protections took centuries to acquire, they will take centuries to regain once lost.
Also, there are very few types of products which cannot be made everywhere, and very few types of ores which do not occur on every continent in quantity. It makes more sense to transport the extracted and purified raw materials then the goods since it requires much less volume and fuel waste for that process.
Which brings on another point: globalization is not sustainable, simply due to the amounts of energy (and types of thereof) required to transport the goods all over the world. We are used to extremely cheap (even at $80 a barrel) energy which is the result of millions of years of slow accumulation and which we are blowing from out asses in mere historical seconds. When that runs out ... globalization will be a word one uses a punchline of a sad joke.
The rate of temperature change is "unprecedented"? You can't be serious. The rate of change is nothing compared to the end of the ice age around 12kya. Nor is there any evidence that the rate of change is unusual compared to the relatively stable temperature since then. Nor is there a shred of evidence that the existing change is unnatural.
The dustbowl and the current Australian drought are examples of cyclical local climate fluctuations. While it is a serious thing, it is neither global nor because of CO2.
The arctic was melting during the dustbowl as well. It didn't last 40-50yrs, and this one won't either. Such predictions are wishful thinking on the part of apocalypse mongers. When we don't understand some process, it's natural to be afraid it will never stop. Like some stereotypical savage seeing an eclipse and thinking the sun isn't going to come back. However, I think that actual savages were more rational than us, as they observed that nature operates in cycles -- something that modern man is apparently oblivious to.
I agree that understanding the climate is vital to the preservation of civilization. Most importantly, there is an Ice Age coming, and if we want to preserve our way of life, we have to find a way to stop it. I to admire the work of scientists over the last few decades, but when you talk about "consensus predictions" it makes me think that you haven't actually read the work.
There was a recent analysis of peer-reviewed climate research that finds that the work of over 500 scientists is undermining what is trying to be passed off by as "consensus" by snake oil salesmen. The ACTUAL scientific consensus includes the facts that
"1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age; 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun's irradiance; 3) sea levels are failing to rise importantly; 4) that our storms and droughts are becoming fewer and milder with this warming as they did during previous global warmings; 5) that human deaths will be reduced with warming because cold kills twice as many people as heat; and 6) that corals, trees, birds, mammals, and butterflies are adapting well to the routine reality of changing climate."
Yes, yes I do. I made a lot of posts on a topic that I care about and know a bit about. That they might be disproportionately directed to you could be because you meet the criteria of being (a) wrong about quite a bit, but (b) not loony wrong. (I tend not to waste my time with true crazies.)
Well, since it wasn't a y2k bug, I would think such a search technique would bias one towards inaccurate articles. You probably consider a site run by climatologists to be "left-wing", but in case I'm wrong, read what Real Climate has to say about it. I really don't want to read a bunch of misinformed blogs, but if you can find something from someone who actually knows what they're talking about, I'd be happy to read it. Ah, here's something from junkscience, which is much less accurate than realclimate, but at least you can't accuse of having a left-wing bias: Do you consider the journals Science, Antarctic Science, Climate Dynamics, Journal of Physical Oceanography, Journal of Climate, Journal of Geophysical Research, Annals of Glaciology, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, and Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics to be left-wing? Actually, I know this from original research. See, I have many right-wing relatives, and when I stay with them I'm often subjected to copious amounts of Fox "News". It's not only right-wing — it's frequently wrong (even when compared to more accurate, openly right-wing news sources). Then what did NASA post on their web-site when they claimed to be posting the corrected numbers? Sure, and on top of those cycles is man-made contributions to global warming. Keep in mind that the same people who were saying that 20 years ago were predicting that it'd be cooler now than it was then. So, unless you think that the 25% sea-ice loss is part of some conspiracy just to back up some fraudulent numbers for global means (which themselves are backed up by satellite data)...Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
My, my, aren't we smug. That being said, you gave a reasonably decent explanation. However, there are, of course, a few problems remaining.
According to your wiki article, we have ice core samples going back 800,000 years. Not ice core samples from the Northwest Passage area, but simply ice core samples. The primary temperature proxy in ice core samples is isotopic concentration within the trapped gases. The trapped gases within an ice core sample tend to be younger than the ice itself, and can vary in age of anywhere from a few hundred to several (6+) thousand years. Additionally, the arguments I've seen posited before is that the temperature analogues are for GLOBAL mean temperature, not local temperature. Which means it's pretty much impossible to say with any degree of credibility whether or not the Northwest Passage has ever been open, or has been closed continuously over the past x thousand years. We just don't have the data at a fine enough granularity.
I'm not a global warming skeptic, per se. I am skeptical of the fact that it's taken on cult like status, with the cult like tendency to burn the heretics. Religions shouldn't masquerade as science, and good science can withstand a little skepticism.