Flashback 2002: US Navy report on Global Warming (Arctic ice gone by 2050)

[gulfcoastliberal]

Navy report shows polar cap is shrinking fast

Maritime military may soon face challenge of dealing with new ocean

The polar ice cap has been shrinking so fast that regular ships may be steaming through the Northwest Passage each summer by 2015, and along northern Russia even sooner, according to a new U.S. Navy report.

Global warming will open the Arctic Ocean to unprecedented commercial activity. The seasonal expansion of open water may draw commercial fishing fleets into the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska within a few decades. The summer ice cover could even disappear entirely by 2050 -- or be concentrated around northern Greenland and Ellesmere Island.

snip

The changes may be speeding up, Conlon said. Last year, the Bering Sea remained ice-free for the first time on record. Satellite imagery found that a regular commercial ship could have traveled last summer from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans over Canada.

http://www.adn.com/front/story/780638p-832316c.html

[hatrack]

1. Looks like they may have been a bit conservative

I'm just waiting for the National Ice Center updates due out tomorrow.

[Delphinus]

2. I'm looking forward to it, hatrack.

And then, once more, I can scream: "Stop the world - I want to get off!!"