Our headline for today is only partially plagiarised from today’s “Arctic Shipping Update” article on “Steven Goddard’s” (un)Real Science blog. This morning Tony Heller posted the following ACNFS Arctic sea ice concentration visualisation:
Them:
Climate experts say that Northeast and Northwest Passages are open for business, but neither will open up this year.
Us:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
August 23, 2014 at 12:37 pm
At the risk of repeating myself:
@SteveSGoddard A reminder that there’s now an “ice free” route thru the #NSR, and almost thru the main #NWPassage too pic.twitter.com/kZrIXTH9e8
— Jim Hunt (@jim_hunt) August 23, 2014
not to mention:
@SteveSGoddard For our mutual friend geran, the official map of ice conditions on the #NSR – http://t.co/ku7jMb3bSF pic.twitter.com/2iVIMBXGZH
— Jim Hunt (@jim_hunt) August 23, 2014
Time passes….
@SteveSGoddard Please can you release this comment from moderation? It’s been there for hours! http://t.co/nXwVVitGuQ pic.twitter.com/9wkrDRh44D
— Jim Hunt (@jim_hunt) August 23, 2014
Whilst we wait for Steve/Tony to do the decent thing, I thought I might take this opportunity to point out that currently there are 555 vessels with official “Permission for navigation on the water area of the Northern Sea Route” this year.
One of them is the Hapag-Lloyd cruise ship MS Hanseatic, which is currently wending its way through the New Siberian Islands:
The Hanseatic also carries a webcam. Here’s what it reveals at the moment:
It’s currently pretty plain sailing on that section of the Northern Sea Route by the look of things!
Us:
By the morning of Sunday August 24th (UTC) my dissenting comment had been released from limbo, although it had remained there the previous evening.
Them:
Somebody is telling a story aren’t they? Perhaps you’d like to tell us where the ship is. On the one hand I see a ship with the name Silver Explorer stuck in the ice, and then on the other I see your picture with green ice free waters. Everybody is going to be looking for this vessel now. Anybody with a satellite phone? Maybe they will wait it out till the ice thaws, like they did at the other pole. I will be saving that pretty picture of green, just in case you told us so.
Us:
Are you aware of the difference between the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route, which is sometimes referred to as “the Northeast Passage”? That “pretty picture of green” is of the latter. Here’s the current position of the cruise ship MS Hanseatic in the Laptev Sea, coloured green on the map above:
@SteveSGoddard Especially for rishrac, here’s the position of the #Hanseatic on the #NSR – http://t.co/Z5sAVtvdAx pic.twitter.com/FWnjz2D1CE
— Jim Hunt (@jim_hunt) August 24, 2014
You will note that my comment above was “stuck in Steve’s moderation queue” for many hours, which does rather spoil the flow of the conversation!
Them:
We’ll keep you posted!