Arctic warming unlocks fabled Northwest Passage
The Arctic may be the world’s next geopolitical battleground. Temperatures there are rising faster than anywhere else in the world, and the melting ice will have profound consequences on the roof of the world, opening strategic waterways to shipping, reducing the ice cap on Greenland, and spurring a rush to claim rights to the wealth of natural resources that lie beneath. NPR examines what’s at stake, who stands to win and lose, and how this could alter the global dynamic. First in a six-part series By Jackie Northam
15 August 2011 It appears as just a speck on the horizon, a slightly darker shape against a vista of Arctic ice. Soon enough, the ship’s bridge makes the announcement: “Polar bear, starboard.” Crew and passengers onboard the CCGS Louis S. St.-Laurent, Canada’s largest icebreaker, head to the open deck, binoculars and cameras ready, and watch as the bear lumbers from one ice floe to another, quickly dipping into the inky blue water and effortlessly pulling himself back up again. Often, a bear will head toward the ship and gaze up at the people gazing down at it, head tilted to one side. The massive creatures don’t demonstrate any fear, just curiosity. That’s likely because they rarely see anything like a ship passing through the Northwest Passage, a series of waterways winding through Canada’s Arctic archipelago of 36,000 islands. It’s midsummer and the first time the coast guard icebreaker, affectionately known as the Louis, is making its way through the ice-choked waters this season. But temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than anywhere else in the world, making the Northwest Passage easier to navigate. As the ice melts faster, the vitally strategic waterway is expected to open up for longer periods of time — an attractive notion for shipping companies hoping to shorten trade routes and gain easier access to economic powerhouses such as China and India, as well as for nations within the Arctic Circle jockeying for vast, untapped natural resources. For hundreds of years, the Northwest Passage has been prized as a potential transit route across the polar region, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and greatly reducing transit times for ships that would have relied on the long, southern routes through the Suez or Panama canals. In the past, it proved to be a dangerous and difficult waterway, and the chilly Arctic waters hold the wrecks of earlier attempts to navigate the passage. Andrew McNeill, captain of the Louis, says it’s not nearly as difficult as it was when he first started sailing in Arctic waters some 30 years ago. “My first season here was, it was 36 hours of constant ramming of ice to get through this area. … There’s been times when the ship has had to reschedule events because of delays getting through the passage,” he recalls. As the Louis makes its way through the waterway, it slices easily through the polar ice sheet. It’s mesmerizing: Enormous blocks of shimmering ice shoot up, twist onto their sides and bob along in the clear water, regrouping in the ship’s wake. […] “I would say what we’re experiencing now is softer ice, it’s not as formidable, it’s yielding to the pressure of the ship, it’s breaking easily. And that’s because the ice itself is warmer,” he says. Rising air and water temperatures in the Arctic mean there is less ice each year, and for longer periods of time. Steve MacLean, president of the Canadian Space Agency, says that trend is expected to continue throughout the Northwest Passage. “It’s always opened up for the last 15 years for about six weeks in the summer. Now it is expected that period will extend. And because it’s going to extend, everything is going to change,” MacLean says. […]
