Global warming is reshaping the frozen Arctic sea and opening up new shipping lanes. The thaw in the north is already causing international disputes regarding the rights to use the fastest sea route between Europe and Asia
By Lior Mammon, Angle, Science and Environment News Agency
The Arctic Circle is a fortified ice fortress surrounded by ice-covered waters, surrounded by long winters and darkness that prevails most of the year. These conditions made him impenetrable and isolated him from the rest of the world. The frozen ice desert, which exceeds in size the Gobi desert or the Sahara desert, is actually an ocean of floating ice that serves as a buffer between the continents that surround it. In the past, only particularly brave adventurers dared to try and conquer it and reach the North Pole, however, scientific observations foretell that spring is coming to the Arctic region, and it is coming faster than expected and also holds some strange and interesting diplomatic complications.
The massive melting of the sea ice occurring in the region in recent years is leading the surrounding countries to try to appropriate parts of the region that was until now a cold no man's land. Is the arctic poplar expected toChange his status And become a kind of new Mediterranean?
Climate change in the Arctic Circle is occurring at an unprecedented rate and intensity, faster than in other regions of the Earth. In recent years, there has been an unusual increase in the surface temperature in the region, 2 or even 3 times the average global warming. This phenomenon is known as the "Arctic amplifier", and it results from the existence of several feedback mechanisms, which operate in a self-reinforcing circular manner, and increase the sensitivity of the Arctic climate system (such as, for example, the albedo effect, which is related to the degree of reflection of solar radiation from the surface ).
Eight nations surround the North Pole and form the Arctic Circle: Denmark (through an agreement with Greenland), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States and Canada. Since we are used to seeing the Earth map centered around us, it is often difficult for us to imagine how close these countries actually are to each other. Just to illustrate, it takes less time to get from Western Canada to Norway, than to get from there to New York, or than to see the movie "Titanic".
Savings of 80 thousand dollars
The sea ice that covers the waters of the Arctic Circle has so far prevented use in "shortcuts" maritime in its domain, but climate change makes its frozen waters liquid and the straits impassable. This is a real maritime revolution. The accelerated melting of the Northwest Passage, which is part of the Canadian Archipelago, makes it, quite literally, every diver's wet dream.
The Northwest Passage (Northwest passage) is a maritime navigation route, which connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean to the north, along the northern coast of North America, and through a series of sea passages in the Canadian Archipelago. Although the passage is considered the shortest shipping route connecting Europe and Asia, the Northern Passage is frozen most of the year, so until now no commercial vessel traffic has been possible through it. But since 2007, the region has been breaking new records of minimum Thickness and extent of coverage of sea ice every year, that much that scientists predict that by 2050 We will witness a summer without any ice at all in the North Pole.
The first voyage from Norway to Canada via the Northwest Passage was made possible in 1906, after many years of being considered a myth, in a ship that was small enough to navigate shallow water and avoid ice floes. After this achievement, more than a hundred years passed until, in 2013, the first commercial ship managed to pass through it. The ship took advantage of a short window of opportunity where surface conditions allowed sailing in this dangerous sea and made its way from Canada to Finland through the Northwest Passage, saving $80 in fuel costs and carrying 25 percent more cargo than if it had had to sail through the Panama Canal.
Use of the Northwest Passage may significantly shorten the sailing times of international trade ships, and therefore the possibility of passing through it beckons especially to policies whose economy relies on the export of goods to the Western world, such as China. Sailing through the passage saves about 7,000 kilometers sailing from Asia to Northern Europe, compared to sailing on other sea routes such as the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal, and correspondingly will lead to a decrease in shipping costs and commodity prices, and in greenhouse gas emissions as a result of reduced fuel use. Thus, ironically, climate change actually opens up a more environmentally friendly commercial shipping option.
Canada vs. the world
The new crossing is attracting attention due to the economic possibilities inherent in it, but while the cool waters are calm, the winds in Canada are raging. Historically, Canada considered the Northwest Passage an internal sea passage, within its territorial waters. So far, no other nation has had reason to challenge this arbitrary determination, since the possibility of maritime trade was not real. But the thawing of the water is not accompanied by a compromise, especially with the neighbor to the south of the USA, which claims that the Northwest Passage should be defined as a passage in international waters. The roots of the maritime dispute between the two countries lie in a case from 1985, when an icebreaker of the US Coast Guard sailed through the passage without prior approval from Canada, and therefore the voyage was interpreted as an invasion of its sovereign territory.
According to Canada, the crossing should not be considered international waters, because it does not meet one important criterion: utility. It is true that the future of the Northwest Passage is depicted as busy, but in practice the number of ships that have completed the voyage so far is only in the double digits. Therefore, according to Canada, its usefulness cannot be used as a rationale that strengthens the requirement to define it as international, as was done in similar cases in the past.
Another issue that supports Canada's sovereignty is the rescue and rescue options in transit, which currently do not exist. Until now, sea voyages in the crossing required a lot of coordination, and were usually done under the escort of the Canadian Coast Guard. In a situation where dozens of ships a day use the passage, Canada will be obliged to allocate resources for the development of a security protection network, which will be paid from the passage fees it can collect for its use. However, Canadian sovereignty means that Canada has the ability to prevent free navigation in the Northwest Passage, and in light of the economic potential inherent in it, this may have consequences for the prosperity or downfall of economies that rely on exports and imports. For this reason and others, the US and the European Union support the definition of the passage as international waters, which according to the laws of the sea give the right of passage to foreign vessels, while preserving the Canadian right to pass environmental regulations and fish in it.
The controversy surrounding the status of the Northwest Passage is geopolitical conflict created as a result of climate change, but is a special case in the landscape of climate change politics. According to Prof. Eran Feitelson from the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University, most of the geopolitical conflicts related to climate change arise from possible risks, and not from the opening of new opportunities. "Compared to cases such as the fear of a flood in Bangladesh as a result of sea level rise, where it is an increase in pressures as a result of the reduction of the surface, the case of the Northwest Passage is an expansion of existing possibilities as a result of the use of territories that were previously impassable. In addition, although its creation following the climate change of the crossing is unique, the legislative framework that will settle the conflict around it exists, and there are legal precedents to draw on, such as the case of the Bosphorus Strait.'
21 thousand dollars per ticket
In any case, while the field of climate change geopolitics deals mainly with speculation about possible future scenarios, in the case of the Northwest Passage it is possible to see in real time how the geography we know is changing, and it is easy to isolate the responsible factor.
Despite the differences of opinion, there are Americans who have already learned to take advantage of the virgin path. In September 2016, the grand cruise ship "Crystal Serenity" safely completed its journey from Alaska to New York through the Northwest Passage, a route that only about 50 ships had completed before it. The voyage, which has an adventurous nature, but is comfortably and abundantly padded in the best American tradition, required logistical cooperation to coordinate rescue and rescue units in the difficult and dangerous area to navigate. "Crystal Serenity" anchored in localities whose local community is smaller than a thousand passengers, eager to catch a glimpse of a sea lion or a polar bear. The 33-day journey is expected to repeat its success This coming September And if you want to be part of the group of pioneers who will make history near the North Pole, be prepared to part with $21 for a basic cruise ticket.
A video by NASA that reviews the state of the ice in the Arctic sea:
32 תגובות
my father
Do you really not understand? To the extent that??
The global average is irrelevant. Especially, when the change in the North Pole is much above average.
The problem is in the limits of permafrost, both in the poles and in the glaciers. There is a very sensitive balance there and every little warming pushes the limit away.
There are no volcanoes in the North Pole so this freaking excuse couldn't work even if it were true.
And whoever claims otherwise is indeed a charlatan. or blind
for miracles
I was talking about an average temperature, not a maximum temperature.
Quote from Wikipedia:
"The average temperature in the hottest month (January) is 2° Celsius at the edge of the continent and -20° inside the continent"
Write minus 20 not minus 10.
Anyway, it doesn't change the main thing and you keep avoiding the main thing. And what I am claiming is that the effect attributed to global warming (of hundreds of degrees per year) is exaggerated, and does not explain the thawing. In any case, the scientists who claim this are not delusional and charlatans as they are presented.
my father
The temperature in Antarctica reaches plus 10 in the summer. Why do you insist on talking nonsense? )
and remind
The discussion started with my first message that concerns Antarctica and not the North Pole.
a quote:
"Avi
I read in some newspaper that they discovered volcanoes under Antarctica that were not known about before
So maybe this is the reason for melting glaciers, and not global warming of a hundred degrees per year.
August 16th, 2017 "
In any case, the debate was not about the temperature at the poles, but by how many hundredths of a degree affects the melting of glaciers that are at temperature differences of tens of degrees.
Even if the minimum and maximum temperature are in the range of 10 to minus 50 degrees, the average temperature of this ice is minus a few degrees.
Therefore, it is impossible to call scientists charlatans who claim that a hundredth or a tenth of an increase does not justify such a massive mass of glaciers as seen in the observations, and that in their opinion it is possible that global warming with all due respect is not the cause of it or not the main cause of it.
I do not claim that these scientists are right! But these scientists are not charlatans and their claims are scientifically legitimate.
This proof is at the level of the duck (if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, then it's a duck...) except that this duck is very lame.
If the evidence were more solid and clear, maybe even Trump would be convinced.
Regarding the Kyoto and Paris agreements - they are agreements that first of all have not proven to be practical in reducing emissions, both because the most emitting countries do not implement them and because they allow rich countries to buy emissions from poor countries with money. Therefore, they only serve as a proxy for these countries. And so I can't blame Trump for withdrawing from them either.
And secondly, it is not clear with certainty that the emissions are the main cause and that reducing them in this way is the solution to the problem.
In our work, there is a concept called "Root Cause Analysis" - before deciding on an action, the root cause should be investigated and the solution should be such that it corrects the root cause - in this case, political decisions were made by pulling them from the hip according to what is convenient for the politicians and did not do "Root Cause Analysis".
The message got stuck in the automatic censorship
In any case, I brought a quote from Wikipedia where it says that in the South Pole the temperature in the hottest month inside the continent is minus 20 degrees.
(Unfortunately, I did not find what is written in Wikipedia about the North Pole, but it should be similar)
In any case, a change of tenths of a degree or hundredths of a degree does not justify the melting of glaciers.
Surely such changes cannot be felt by older people who remember...
If the source of this is "Wikipedia" get a full quote from Wikipedia:
The Antarctic climate is very cold all year round. In the lower parts of the continent and on its beaches it is a little less cold in the summer season. The amount of precipitation in this continent is the lowest in the world - it is less than 100 mm per year, and in this respect it is also the largest desert on earth. The few precipitation falls mainly in the form of snow on the coasts of the continent. The paucity of precipitation is due to conditions of moisture freezing, which does not allow the formation of clouds. The average temperature in the hottest month (January) is 2° Celsius at the edge of the continent and -20° inside the continent, while in the coldest season (July) the average temperature is -18° at the edge of the continent and -45° inside the continent. In the heart of the continent, temperatures lower than -60° are recorded in winter. The lowest temperature in the world was recorded in Antarctica in July 1983 at the Vostok research station and is -89.2º. The highest temperature recorded in Antarctica was 14.9°.
nice to me
Beware of my father's facts. They are very incorrect.
my father
The temperatures in July in the Arctic region range from minus ten to plus ten degrees (Wikipedia).
my father
Temperatures in July in the Arctic range from minus 10 to plus 10 degrees Celsius (Wikipedia).
my father
Temperatures in July in the Arctic range from minus 10 to plus 10 degrees Celsius (Wikipedia). Are you ready to apologize now for the nonsense you said earlier?
After that I will explain to you why your consistent claim about 0.017 degrees per year is so ridiculous.
my father
Temperatures in July in the Arctic range from minus 10 to plus 10 degrees Celsius (Wikipedia). Are you ready to apologize now for the bullshit you said earlier?
After that I will explain to you why your consistent claim about 0.017 degrees per year is so ridiculous.
nice to me
Beware of my father's "facts" - I would ask for a source for his nonsense. One fact is enough to show what lies he preaches.
So here's a fact: summer temperatures in the Arctic range from plus 10 to minus 10 degrees Celsius. My source is Wikipedia, in particular - look at the following link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Arctic#/media/File:ArcticStationClimatologies.png
The situation is not good, but people like my father treat global warming as a religion, thus denying the truth.
please me
I will explain what you asked before:
The scientists found that there is a very small global warming of 0.17 degrees in ten seconds, that is 0.017 degrees per year.
At the pole the average temperature ranges from minus 10 degrees to minus sixty degrees.
However, it is seen that there is melting of glaciers more than in previous years, and this is seen in observations of the poles.
What is not explained is the connection between the things, because this very, very small warming is not enough to melt glaciers. And not so that people feel it.
That's all I claimed.
It's true that there is global warming due to the GHG that is emitted from the industry...
It is true that the glaciers are melting at a considerable rate.
But the measured warming is very small and does not justify such melting, so perhaps there is room to look for another reason for the melting of the glaciers.
The problem is that anyone who dares to make such a claim is considered an infidel in the new religion.
The fact is that if you heat ice that is at minus ten to minus sixty degrees two hundredths of a degree it does not melt.
You can try it in your refrigerator at home.
I allow you to heat it even by two whole degrees (which is equivalent to global warming of one hundred to one hundred fifty fifty years) and you will see that it still does not melt.
This is a physical fact that you learn in elementary school.
And one more try - check if you feel the difference in your home, a temperature of 30 degrees or 30.2 degrees, which should be the difference in temperature that the elders you mentioned claim to feel.
Father, I will try to help you, briefly, to understand the geopolitical map:
The world is at war.
It was always like that.
Most wars happen over control of resources.
The most necessary resource for man is the same resource that provides him with energy.
Water, for example, is a resource. Man needs water and fights for it.
Another extremely critical resource for man (especially in the West), in the 20th and 21st century, is oil.
And there is, you will be surprised, a war over this resource...
The war is about the fact that the 'Eastern world' is not ready to satisfy the energy needs (ie - to sell oil in a certain quantity or price) of the 'Western world'.
What will the 'Westerner' do? In his great 'wisdom' - he will invent a global problem……. will try to convince the whole world that oil should be replaced with another source... and will even receive a Nobel Prize for it...
Hey, if in this way it will also lead to the development of new technologies, create new jobs and contribute a lot to the economy.. what's good...
But the road to hell is paved with good intentions - and trying to improve the world by non-kosher means only causes the world to emit more 'hot air' into the atmosphere...
nice to me
There is not exactly a discussion here. There is a denial of science here.
The world is warming because of man's GHG emissions. It's very simple.
There are things that are open to discussion, but warming up to the person is not one of them.
my father
You wrote "No one has yet explained how a warming of 0.017 degrees melts glaciers in an area where the average temperature ranges from minus 60 to minus 10 degrees"
really?? Don't you like the facts again??
my father
You wrote "and as long as they have not clearly proven the connection, it is legitimate to look for other reasons for the melting of the glaciers"
Yes, they clearly proved the connection - what don't you understand here?!?
my father
I didn't know that science is a matter of personal opinion 🙂
"I don't feel like accepting the theory that fits the observations"... really mature 🙂
The discussion between the two of you confuses me. After all, my father has shown here in the past that everyone is getting warmer and in the north it is probably due to the reflection of the sun much more. There are claims that in the south of the planet the glaciers are expanding. One glacier in Iceland could possibly grow due to the pressure of the ice but in the end there are measurements that show that 16 out of the last 17 years were record heat years and it doesn't matter if man is responsible for this 100% or 1%. Our future is expected to be different. What results will the global economy and global society have from the rise in temperature? thirst? Wars? The northwest passage is marginal
for miracles
Unfortunately, like every fundamentalist, you are scared to death of thinking openly or slightly different from the consensus of "your rabbis".
And so no matter how many times I write that I don't think like Trump and don't think that there is no warming or that it is not because of man... you can't understand it, because you have to categorize me as black or white.
There is no gray with fundamentalists, I can either be a follower of your religion, or an infidel in your religion who is condemned to be stoned in the city square.
my father
The climate is warming as a result of man's actions and there are many observations that show this. These are facts.
You, the genius Trump, and several other charlatans and fools deny these facts. Each in their own way and each because of a different agenda.
I'm sorry I don't have a gentle way to say it.
And the word "denier" is a word that reminds of the word "unbelievers"
And I think that turning science into a fundamentalist religion is more dangerous than global warming.
Miracles -
I never claimed that the glaciers are not melting and that there is no retreat of the ice at the poles.
Nor did I claim that there is no global warming.
And I didn't even claim that there was no connection between them.
I just argued that the possibility, that two things happen at the same time without connection, is an acceptable and reasonable possibility.
And as long as they have not clearly proven the connection, it is legitimate to look for other reasons for the melting of the glaciers, and it is not legitimate to call scientists who are looking for such a connection "deniers" and to silence them with aggressive propaganda.
On the other hand, what is dangerous in my opinion is to look for an agreement in the form of the Kyoto/Paris agreement.
I do not believe that these agreements will help reduce global warming.
First of all they have been proven ineffective so far.
And secondly, they are used as an excuse for the beautiful souls in Europe who buy emissions in third world countries with money and continue to pollute themselves.
And now that the whole issue is used as a political lever against Trump... they forget the goal of reducing pollution.
my father
The warming in the North Pole is twice the average, the reason for this is probably the reduction in the area of the snow.
Today I drove 12 hours from home to see the eclipse. The distance is three hours, but I chose to go through 3 snowy volcanoes. To remind you... it's summer now. I did this because I was here 30 years ago and I have photographs of the mountains at this very season.
On these volcanoes are glaciers, rivers of ice (not the Titanic kind). Father, the pictures from today are shocking!!! The size of the glaciers has decreased significantly!!!
I spoke at one of the visitor centers with a retired researcher and he explained to me that the size of a glacier is determined by the difference between the amount of snow that falls in the winter and the amount of snow that melts in the summer. This difference used to be positive and the elders of the village say that the glaciers were very large. Today the glaciers are retreating and in a few decades they will be gone.
I remember being in the Canadian Rockies in '88 and one glacier came right up close to the road. Come and read in the link how it is today
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/disintegrating-rockies-glacier-sends-strong-message-on-climate/article26945443/%3fservice=amp
90% of the glaciers are retreating. And yes, tiny changes in the average temperature can cause it.
Father, you have no right to change the facts. Don't think for a second that this is a smart thing to do. It is false and dangerous.
Miracles - I try to find directions for thinking outside the box and consensus.
Except that unlike homeopathy and creationism in this case also on the other side there are scientists who use accepted scientific methods.
I won't take care of anyone, I just want to open my head and ask if the king is naked or not.
No one has yet explained how a warming of 0.017 degrees melts glaciers in an area where the average temperature ranges from minus 60 to minus 10 degrees, or makes people feel hotter.
my father
Why don't you claim that the earth is flat, or that the theory of relativity is wrong? Maybe homeopathy really heals too? Maybe evolution is bullshit too? Vaccines - what, they don't cause autism?
It's those stupid and lying scientists…. Why do you not take care of those who care about the future of your grandchildren?
For miracles - I don't believe that there is no warming, it's just that you are not able to understand it.
Although I also read scientific websites, I am not looking to show my knowledge here, not that I am smarter, nor am I trying to show that I am smarter than someone else.
And you don't have to be smart to know that scientists are human and scientists also make mistakes, and they also have interests unrelated to discovering the truth, and what is written on these scientific websites sometimes contradicts others.
That's why I like to bring up things that are against the scientific consensus and pose annoying questions.
Secondly, I keep saying that there is global warming (because of the Fed and Adam and... it doesn't matter) but it is only that it is on the scale of one hundred-one hundred and seventy thousand degrees Kelvin per year and not on the order of magnitude that explains the melting of glaciers in areas where on the hottest days in the summer the temperature is several degrees below to the freezing temperature of water.
Besides, a few days ago I told about an article I saw about a glacier in Iceland that grew from 2010 to a height of several meters... and someone here explained a scientific and scholarly explanation that it melts from below and not from above...
my father
A smart person is interested in scientific websites. There he can read that the ice at the poles melts from above, father, not from below. He would also read that this ice loading could cause the volcanoes to erupt - - therefore the danger is even greater. Of course, he has known for a long time that there are many signs of atmospheric warming, and there is evidence that it is PAD that causes the warming, and that it is proven beyond any doubt that the burning of fossil fuel is the main reason for the increase in PAD concentration.
The rate of warming in the North Pole is much higher than one hundred degrees per year - in the best case (!) the temperature will rise by 2 degrees by 2060, and in the worst case - in 2026. This is the range given by the different models.
But you think there is no warming, that GHG is not a greenhouse gas, and that man does not emit GHG. But you also think the opposite….
I read in some newspaper that they discovered volcanoes under Antarctica that were not known about before
So maybe this is the reason for melting glaciers, and not global warming of a hundred degrees per year.