Posted on 08/28/2007 5:58:22 PM PDT by Daffynition
The North-West Passage – the sea route running along the Arctic coastline of North America, normally perilously clogged with thick ice – is nearly ice-free for the first time since records began.
"Since August 21 the North-West Passage is open to navigation. This is the first time that it happens," Nalan Koc, head of the Norwegian Polar Institute's climate change programme, told reporters in Longyearbyen, a town in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
"The Arctic ice sheet currently extends on 4.9m square kilometres. In September 2005 it measured 5.3m square kilometers."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Obviously they weren't keeping "records" when the Vikings were sailing through it.
Spencer Tracy vindicated!
Reuters gets that sinking feeling
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1879303/posts
News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic....
Oh ...that’s funny! Thanks!
The SS MANHATTAN successfully opened the Northwest Passage to commercial traffic in 1969.
The Dorsett culture (pre-Eskimo) focused on hunting the whales that migrated through the NW passage. As the climate worsened, the whales stopped migrating and the Dorset disappeared, replaced by the Thule Inuit. This occurred approximately 1200 AD.
Well said. During the medieval warming, when sealevels really did rise (as opposed to the imaginary rise during the past 150 years or so) and summers freed the waters of the Arctic Ocean, trade and exploration reached the length of Asia.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1888019/posts?page=2#2
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1888019/posts?page=8#8
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The SS MANHATTAN was stripped of some her ice reinforcing abilities and she was put on a general crude oil trade. About 1974 I had a chance to go alongside her for a lighting operation in San Francisco Bay. I was excited about the operation because she was a famous ship. Quite a let down. She was rusty and not well maintained. When it came time to hook up the hoses we found we had to send tools, bolts and gaskets over to her. The real kicker came when we had to send our bos’n over to show them how to hook up.
With the ice passage open, they may be able to rethink the plan of sending tankers through and maybe even open ANWR.
The only thing missing from that pic is Lootie, and the caption, “Women and minorities hardest hit.”
They actually were. They're called "The Sagas of the Icelanders." These detailed records of the settlement of Greenland and the exploration of eastern North America have been conveniently ignored by the global warming crowd. They prefer to blame the warming period of the 11th through 15th centuries on greenhouse gases released by Vikings burning European settlements.
:’)
Foolish optimism kills explorers (Vilhjalmur Stefansson Wrangel Island expedition)
Gritty book/ interesting read.
Thanks. I’d previously skimmed a book about the “friendly Arctic” joker. :’)
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