Two scientifically- and technically-oriented friends of mine keep up with what is happening at the poles, and one of them knows every URL around. He sends me this message today (Thursday)
“Un-freaking-believable.
“The temperatures at the pole monitoring stations began their yearly plunge a few weeks back (which I think I noted at the time). And I rather expected that was the end of that - no significant trans-polar openings this year; just the early opening (un-navigable) of the Siberian Seaway.
“Boy was I wrong. I have been watching the polar ice cover images, and the ice in the Northwest Passage has continued its breakup despite the warming.
“The southern narrow route has been open for a month or more. I don’t know if it is navigable or not. Now the second route around Banks Island’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banks_Island) eastern shore is nearly navigable. AND most importantly, the Northwest Passage itself is now all broken ice. There is no ice pack there. It may even become navigable in the next few days.
“This shot is the channel north of Banks Island yesterday.
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2006263/crefl2_143.A2006263200001-2006263200500.2km.jpg
“And here are the German ice cover images:
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_visual.png
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_nic.png“
