Northwest Passage Not Yet an Option for Most Shipping
A new survey of summer sea ice through Arctic Canada’s storied Northwest Passage reveals that the ice will remain too thick and treacherous for regular commercial shipping to use the route for decades to come.
Despite accelerated summertime melt around the North Pole so far this century, researchers from York University found the ice is still up to 10 feet thick in most regions of the passage, which is actually a collection of many possible sea routes through icy islands.
Shippers have long dreamed of using the Arctic route as a shortcut between Europe and Asia.
Canadian officials say a record number of 30 vessels transited through the Northwest Passage in 2012, but most were accompanied by icebreakers to clear away stubborn patches of ice.
In early September, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that the “southerly route” through the Northwest Passage was open, but did not say for how long or how safe the route was.
The Northwest Passage appears open in this September 11, 2015, NASA image. That date marked the summer's greatest extent of Arctic sea ice melt.
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