Slashdot Mirror
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."
A wonderful, magical route that can turn kilometers into nanometers?
Can we use this as a clear proof of a unique ice sheet retractation or was the news really about the boat design ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
A voyage between Hamburg and Yokohama is only 6,600 nm. via the Northern Sea Route â" less than 60% of the 11,400 nm. Suez route.
So it sounds like this new route will conserve fuel and cut out at least 40% of their CO2 emissions.
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!
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Nope GW is a fact (as well as Global Cooling). The question is whether it is man-made or just natural climate cycles.
Canadians and Russians would certainly save a fortune on heating bills.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
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
Please, this news is worthless compared to other coming attractions. Just think about the vast amount of land that is working its way towards being tropical climate beach front property! All those rich people living in the current beach front property will lose their places and be forced to buy new places! You should buy up some land in those middle regions now while it is still cheap. I for one welcome our ice caps melting! Travel is expensive so bringing the ocean to me is a much more cost effective vacation solution.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Beluga Fraternity? My Russian is so rusty I might just be typing the measurements of the playmate of the month, but wouldn't that portmanteau mean "White Brotherhood"? They've gotta mean something other that that, right?
I am not a crackpot.
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
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.
Think of the Darien Gap. It has been navigated by vehicles, rather special purpose ones. If you read that it was now being served by a regular truck route, you might suspect things had changed a bit.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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?
Soviet's have regularly sailed through the Northern Sea Route in summer since, at least, the middle of the last century. There is some great prose written with such sailing as a backdrop, in fact (in Russian, not sure about translations).
The sailing was not easy and the airplanes were occasionally required to investigate movement of ice-fields. At the beginning and the end of the season, the ships were organized in convoys, that were headed by icebreakers. (USSR even had a few nuclear-powered ones, first one built in 1959). But in the middle of the summer a regular ship could make the trip on its own...
Maybe, there is less ice there now, but it is not like the trip has only just become possible.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Not to burst your bubble, but "our habitat", of large mammals in general becomes actually much better (esp. much larger, but also easier to farm) at a higher global temperature. Lush forests in greenland house a hell of a lot more creatures, and humans, than ice valleys and gletsjers.
There are probably disasters that global warming causes, if it indeed happens in any significant way (ie. not like it's currently happening), but there are many good things too. The last "globally warmed" climate saw a rich civilization in Greenland, with huge orchards and wineries, lush forests, rich wildlife, etc. The same goes for a sizeable part of Siberia. With but a few degrees temperature gain, life there (and it's a fucking huge place) will become much, much easier.
The same goes for quite a few spots on the southern hemisphere. There is also the little tidbit that global warming stops desertification, and makes e.g. the sahara lose ground. The advantages of that can hardly be overstated.
But, of course, coastal cities might be in for a world of hurt (although given that holland has an average elevation of -2 meter, whereas the worst US coastal city has an average elevation of +3 meter, and something like New York has over 5, the absolute worst case sea level rise of 95 centimeters by 2100 should not be a problem for any US coastal city, or for Holland for that matter. A more problematic city is Venice, but whether or not the sea level rises, we will have to move Venice or give it to the sea in less than 150 years anyway).
We are warmblooded mammals. The reason we beat the dinosaurs was the fact that dinosaurs don't do well at all in colder climates. Mammals on the other hand, can live in temperatures as low as -40 degrees celcius on average. At current global temperature, most reptiles are limited to tropical climates. The larger reptiles are even limited to warmer-than-their-surroundings rivers in very warm climates. Not that a 6 degree rise will allow crocodiles to live in Europe, but they might colonize the mediterranean coast and a few other rivers than the nile.
Climate myths: It's all a conspiracy
Climate myths: Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans
Climate myths: Mars and Pluto are warming too
Why do these discredited myths get moderated up on Slashdot again and again? Seriously.
Climate myths: The cooling after 1940 shows CO2 does not cause warming
Climate myths: The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming
Climate myths: Global warming stopped in 1998
I'm surprised you didn't mention Mars and Pluto.
I wonder why these discredited myths keep getting moderated up on Slashdot time and time again - it's almost as if there's a conspiracy to make skeptics look ill-informed.
This sounds like a troll, but I'll bite.
Your examples are easily refutable, yet never seem to go away on the conservative talk show circuit.
Pluto is warming up because it is on a highly-elliptical orbit, and has just recently passed the point at which it is closest to the Sun. So it is expected that it be going through a warming phase. And a little bit of logic would tell you that since Pluto is so much farther away from the Sun than the Earth, if energy output from the Sun were responsible for warming on Pluto, the effect on Earth would be many magnitudes greater (i.e. it would have to be hot enough on Earth to melt lead before you'd notice an appreciable temperature difference on Pluto).
Mars is indeed warming up slightly, but that can be explained by Milankovitch cycles, and Mars is much more susceptible to climate change because it does not have any large moons to stabilize it's rotation axis.
Conservatives jumped on the news that Jupiter was experiencing "climate change". But it only takes two minutes to find out that the climate change being talked about is a shift in temperature (warmer near the equator, colder near the poles). Jupiter is not warming overall. Of course, that little clarification doesn't seem to make it into news stories from Fox News.
And there are 5 other planets (and many many moons) in the solar system which show no signs of warming.
Sorry...but anthropomorphic global warming is likely true. Without any CO2 in the atmosphere, Earth would be entirely covered in ice. And therefore, you cannot double CO2 levels in the atmosphere (which could happen by the end of this century) without expecting some effects. And you cannot deny that increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere are not the result of human activity (we've burned approximately 1 trillion barrels of oil so far....do you really think that would have no effect?).
And even if AGW is all bunk, so what? We should be trying to reduce our oil consumption and investing in alternate energy for other reasons, like national security, and the fact that we've very likely reached, or are about to reach peak oil production, and that future oil price spikes are going to be the norm from now on.
This isn't news.
This isn't the first time a northern route was used.
The Vikings, prior to the ~1250 onset of global cooling, routinely used a northern route to reach Siberia and sometimes even China during the 900s, 1000s, and 1100s.
You're going to have to provide some sort of citation for that, I'm afraid. Better, that is, than this one:
http://www.smirking.com/cms/gallery/signs/scadinavian.jpg.html
The Arctic Ocean is now largely clear of ice, heralding vast new business opportunities, President Sarah Palin announced today.
The famed North-West Passage is now permanently navigable, with huge shipping volumes between Arctic nations. "We're considering just building a highway straight across," said Mrs Palin, "though those long desert drives can be dangerous to health without air conditioning."
Tourists have been flocking to Alaska and northern Canada to get away from the boiling oceans and sulphurous atmosphere around Hawaii. The Nunavut Tourist Bureau has shipped 60,000 swimming polar bear shirts this month alone. "It's also clear," said Palin, "that the bears have no business claiming to be endangered when there's so many jobs in tourism for them."
Oil drilling in Alaska will also be much easier, and will of course further the conditions leading to this Arctic economic boom. "No it won't," said Palin. "What are you talking about?"
"I'll say one thing for them evilutionist climate change conspirators," giggled Palin, "their hard work to take away the ice and make it look like they were right has done wonders for us good and decent folk."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
To think of all that effort the US went through during the Cold War to deny Russia any good year-round ice-free ports.
Now, thanks to our profligarate lifestyles, Russia is about to have hundreds of them. I hope they at least thank us...
Right. They "average" significantly higher than the expected sea level. So only PARTS of our highly expensive coastal real estate will end up underwater. That shouldn't be any problem at all. Not mention the fact that much of the densely populated and very low-lying nation of Bangladesh, for example, will end up submerged. And this:
Except that the great plains, the breadbasket of the US, is predicted to become significantly drier... to the point where agriculture would become essentially impossible over large areas currently being farmed. But that's OK, Greenland is going to become very productive!