NATIONAL WEATHER ONLINE - HEADLINES: A change in Arctic sea ice motion slows seasonal decline

The Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route

So far this year, neither the Northwest Passage nor the Northern Sea Route has opened. The Northern Sea Route appears likely to open soon, but ice still clogs many of the channels in the Northwest Passage.

Whether or not the navigational passages through the Arctic Ocean will open in a given summer depends on atmospheric circulation and ice thickness. For example, although 2007 was a record low extent in the Arctic and the Northwest Passage was nearly completely open, the Northern Sea Route was still choked with ice because of a circulation pattern that pushed a tongue of ice against the Siberian coast. Recent research by Stephen Howell at the University of Waterloo in Canada shows that whether the Northwest Passage clears depends less on how much melt occurs, and more on whether multi-year sea ice is pushed into the channels. Counterintuitively, as the ice cover thins, ice may flow more easily into the channels, preventing the Northwest Passage from regularly opening in coming decades.

Luck – and Snow – in the Air | Ice Stories: Dispatches From Polar Scientists

That afternoon we caught another bear immediately after we finished working on the first bear. The warm weather from early August had disappeared, and temperatures were much colder. We set up the windbreak to make our sampling easier, and shortly thereafter it began to snow lightly. I was really excited – I had not yet seen snow in August. We finished up that bear and began to fly home, only to have the other helicopter spot an adult male bear. It was a bear we had not captured yet and it was on a large island that would make darting possible. While they began the capture, we flew back to Oliktok to grab some additional supplies before joining the other helicopter.

The Strata-Sphere » Idiots Trying To Play Scientist

Why we allow journalism majors to communicate science to the general public is beyond me. They don’t even know when some fool with a PhD or two is making completely dumb claims – which tends to be the case with the global warming mythology. In this case I think the scientists might have been trying to be balanced, but when you scream ‘global warming’ the liberal media swoons into a faint.