From Reuters via Insurance Journal, October 17:
A Chinese container ship has completed a pioneering journey through the Arctic to a UK port, state-run news agency Xinhua reported, cutting in half the usual transit time for the electric vehicles and solar panels aboard destined for Europe.
The Istanbul Bridge’s maiden voyage, originally expected to take 18 days, was delayed by two days due to a storm off the coast of Norway but the ship still reached Europe earlier than the 40 to 50 days it takes freighters going through the Suez Canal or around the Cape of Good Hope.
The new Northern Sea Route, running entirely through Arctic waters and within Russia’s exclusive economic zone, can now be navigated by ships due to global warming....
....MUCH MORE
The Danish Meteorological Institute is hooking up to their new supercomputer and the ice thickness map is stuck on October 5 but for the purposes of this post that is just fine. Here's the ice-free Northern Sea Route via the DMI:
Because of the way ice freezes (and melts) we would expect the graph to show faster growth in extent than in the last few years. Unfortunately that is because more water is exposed and come next spring it won't be very thick compared to the multi-year ice you really want to see.
