Warmer temperatures were supposed to make Arctic shipping easier. But thick floating ice created by local melting is a bigger risk than people realized
Climate change is thinning Arctic sea ice, but contrary to conventional wisdom that’s making shipping through the North American Arctic more difficult.looked at Canada’s Northwest Passage over 15 years. It found that the melting of local ice due to global warming enables thicker ice from Greenland to flow into the corridor’s choke points, reducing the length of time when ships can move through the passage.
Cook and her colleagues looked at historical ice charts of the Northwest Passage and converted those into season lengths. The seasons indicate the number of weeks where medium ice-strength ships can traverse the passage without taking extra safety precautions. Despite the shrinking seasons, crossings have — on average — increased over the past decade, according to data provided to POLITICO’s E&E News by the Canadian Coast Guard.
“The southern route of the Northwest Passage, that's where there is an increase in ships going through,” Cook explained. “People have their eye on the northern parts of the Northwest Passage. It's shorter. People would want to go that way more than the southern, but they still haven't really because of the presence of ice.”
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