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Northern Sea Route Through Arctic Becomes a Reality
Hugh Pickens writes "Andrew Revkin writes in the NY Times that since 1553, when Sir Hugh Willoughby led an expedition north in search of a sea passage over Russia to the Far East, mariners have dreamed of a Northern Sea Route through Russia's Arctic ocean that could cut thousands of miles compared with alternate routes. A voyage between Hamburg and Yokohama is only 6,600 nm. via the Northern Sea Route — less than 60% of the 11,400 nm. Suez route. Now in part because of warming and the retreat and thinning of Arctic sea ice in summer, this northern sea route is becoming a reality with the 12,700-ton 'Beluga Fraternity,' designed for a mix of ice and open seas, poised to make what appears to be the first such trip. The German ship picked up equipment in Ulsan, South Korea, on July 23 and arrived in Vladivostok on the 25th with a final destination at the docks in Novyy Port, a Siberian outpost. After that, if conditions permit, it will head to Antwerp or Rotterdam, marking what company officials say would be the first time a vessel has crossed from Asia to Europe through the Arctic on a commercial passage."
As long as our global economy is stimulated, I don't see any issue with destroying our habitat...
Nope GW is a fact (as well as Global Cooling). The question is whether it is man-made or just natural climate cycles.
Imagine the benefits to the environment if we could just figure out a way to melt the ice caps completely. Our greenhouse emissions would plummet!
Of course they would. Melt the ice caps, flood the most populated areas of the planet, and bingo - mankind's greenhouse gas emissions drop dramatically!
I am officially gone from
So that they can put any polar bears stranded on isolated ice floes out of their misery.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Why bring up the Americans? Isn't this a German company?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Eh, no.
The questions are how much is man made, what are the consequences for our long and short term survival prospects and what actions to take if these consequences are unacceptable.
The Artic Archipeligo is Canada's. Ask permission first. Despite what the American government may think, there is no international waterway through the Artic Archipeligo.
The Canadian claim doesn't extend all the way to the Northern coast of Siberia and Russia, does it? TFA specifically says they're not using the "Northwest Passage". And WTF would the US Government care about a territorial dispute involving Germany, Russia and Canada anyway? Especially since there's no mention in TFA (or TFB) about Canada at all.
I am not a crackpot.
If I lived in a country like Russia (or Canada, Norway, Finland, etc, for that matter), I'd be an enthusiastic supporter of anything that might even possibly tip the balance of the climate towards Global Warming for exactly these sorts of reasons. I mean, if you owned the largest frozen mass of land anywhere, why even care about such a cause?
http://www.beanleafpress.com
The Artic Archipeligo is Canada's. Ask permission first. Despite what the American government may think, there is no international waterway through the Artic Archipeligo.
This has nothing to do with US imperialism, despite your attempt to make it sound bad. The article merely mentions the possibility of passage through Canadian waters. If the ice melts and there is some benefit to its economy, Canada will work something out with its neighbors to allow access.
Regardless, passage through Canadian waters wasn't the main focus of the article...
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
Imagine the benefits to the environment if we could just figure out a way to melt the ice caps completely. Our greenhouse emissions would plummet!
Of course they would. Melt the ice caps, flood the most populated areas of the planet, and bingo - mankind's greenhouse gas emissions drop dramatically!
The arctic ice cap has ALREADY displaced the amount of water it currently contains. Melting it would have no additional effect on sea level. I, for one, welcome the removal of that troublesome ice sheet up north. For too long, the Suez and Panama Canals have stifled global competition. Just think of the fuel savings!
Bearded Dragon
Mod parent up.
I'm personally sick of being told how $POINTLESS_MEASURE will solve GW at either a cost of billions or by making everyone's lives worse, with unproven potential benefit, but the real solutions are being left to wither (at least in the UK).
Banning plastic carrier bags, putting up a few wind turbines or raising the tax on X won't do anything. If AGW was really concerning them they would just build a load of nuclear power capacity (or at least a big tidal barrage) and be done with it. At the moment all they can do is hope that people will start to 'save power' (they won't) and desperately try to come up with ways to tax electric/alternative cars to hell, removing any cost advantage they might ever have over petrol/gas power (top tip: fuel currently costs $6.31/USGal in the UK, the gov't is trying to apply similar levels of taxation to electric/hydrogen/whatever cars in the future using GPS-based 'Road Pricing')
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
That panel of "scientists" is all about pushing the global conspiracy of man-made global warming, instead of acknowledging the solar activity cycle that has already been shown to follow the ups and downs of Earth's temp. Global Warming is a socialist conspiracy to thwart industry and send us back into the dark ages.
Mars is suffering global warming, too. Gee...I wonder why? And Pluto. Seems every planet in the Sol System is warming up. What is the one thing they all have in common? Al Gore invented them. No, wait, could it be the solar activity cycle?
Bearded Dragon
The arctic ice cap has ALREADY displaced the amount of water it currently contains. Melting it would have no additional effect on sea level. I, for one, welcome the removal of that troublesome ice sheet up north. For too long, the Suez and Panama Canals have stifled global competition. Just think of the fuel savings!
Good thing we don't have to worry about all of that ice covering Greenland and the Antarctic displacing ocean water ... oh. Wait a minute.
The OP of the message I replied to made no reference to the ice sheets on land.
It also didn't exclude the ice caps on land. It just said "ice caps", which I would imagine includes both kinds.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
The OP of the message I replied to made no reference to the ice sheets on land.
Next time, when you think you are about to be witty. Stop. Because you aren't.
Which part of "ice caps" confused you into thinking the OP was only talking about the Arctic?
I wonder how many other positive aspects of global warming there are? I realize the warming is the scare, but has there been much examination into benefits of global warming?
You do realize that at some point, people don't repeat known information? The sun's energy output that you quote is the sun's energy output as averaged over known cycles.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I think the concern about the arctic ice is not that it will raise sea levels (by itself it won't), but rather, that losing them will reduce the earth's albino, or reflectivity, which would accelerate the warming.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
The trick in the first article is that he mysteriously picks April 16 as the day uses to compare different years' ice coverages. He obviously picked that specific date after the fact, because it's the date that gives him the conclusion he wants to reach. I can also hit a bulls-eye every time if I'm allowed to draw the target after I throw the dart. As for a reliable source that refutes his claims, I gave three.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.