This is neither weather nor some ships in the Antarctic ice fields or even a one-time only event. These are just the totals for the third, commercial season of Arctic transits: 31 vessels, 911,867 tons liquid 4 vessels, 276,939 tons bulk 1 vessel, 66,868 tons LNG 13 vessels, 100,223 tons general Final statistics figures for transit navigation on the NSR in 2013 | Northern Sea Route Information Office Commercial shipping, ordinarily boring beyond belief, becomes a lot more interesting when it uses what was formerly an ice blocked route. To the best of my knowledge, Antarctica has no similar, shipping sea lanes. The tips of Africa, South American and of course, Australia (Tazmania?) are well isolated from Antarctic sea ice. Bob Wilson
For southern shipping I am sure they stay as far from ice as possible. Except for whalers, and that is scarcely the done thing any more. And 'expeditions' But <2 million tons is like nothing, right? What is the total global sea traffic? I (once again) have the uncontrollable urge to push this thread OT because the Panama Canal expansion project is in financial trouble. That should almost certainly get resolved because, well, money money money. Les militaires also want a bigger hole to drive their ships through...
THERE WON'T BE ANY ICE AT ALL! HOW THE BBC PREDICTED CHAOS IN 2007 Only six years ago, the BBC reported that the Arctic would be ice-free in summer by 2013, citing a scientist in the US who claimed this was a ‘conservative’ forecast. Perhaps it was their confidence that led more than 20 yachts to try to sail the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific this summer. As of last week, all these vessels were stuck in the ice, some at the eastern end of the passage in Prince Regent Inlet, others further west at Cape Bathurst. Shipping experts said the only way these vessels were likely to be freed was by the icebreakers of the Canadian coastguard. According to the official Canadian government website, the Northwest Passage has remained ice-bound and impassable all summer. The BBC’s 2007 report quoted scientist Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, who based his views on super-computer models and the fact that ‘we use a high-resolution regional model for the Arctic Ocean and sea ice’. He was confident his results were ‘much more realistic’ than other projections, which ‘underestimate the amount of heat delivered to the sea ice’. Also quoted was Cambridge University expert Professor Peter Wadhams. He backed Professor Maslowski, saying his model was ‘more efficient’ than others because it ‘takes account of processes that happen internally in the ice’. He added: ‘This is not a cycle; not just a fluctuation. In the end, it will all just melt away quite suddenly.’ And now it's global COOLING! Return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 29% in a year | Mail Online
[Yawn!] We already talked about this article back in one of your previous threads: 50-to-1-climate-mitigation-costs-50-times-more-than-adaptation. Is there anything new that warrants bringing it up again? Here is a nice animated gif of that Arctic ice recovery (though I wish it had a more neutral title, as the labeling is a bit inflammatory):
Thanks for the lead: Interesting, I just checked the "BBC" web site: About BBC Chartering - BBC Chartering It looks like they have some ships in the Baltic, not the currently closed Arctic Ocean, but pretty darn close: http://www.bbc-chartering.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Downloads/Worldwide_Positions.pdf In fact they have this brochure showing their routes. Look at pp. 17: http://www.bbc-chartering.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Downloads/BBC_Liner_Brochure.pdf Bob Wilson
