Arctic Sea ice 2015

I was thinking of piracy in the Indian Ocean approaches:
Live Piracy Map

Bob Wilson

 

Final post for the 2015 Arctic voyages of YONG SHENG that docked today after sailing twice through the Arctic. This route saves 10 days, each way, avoiding burning 25T of fuel and labor for a crew of over a dozen.

Since the start, I was mostly just updating earlier posts in this thread with later details and only adding something when new, significant events occurred. This was just under my threshold:

YONG SHENG arrived at
port BRAKE
at 2015-08-21 00:28 UTC
Time of arrival is the time the vessel approaches the entrance of the port

Vessel Details Current position, if within range Position and trackShip's Photos​

This is the Chinese vessel that sailed the Northeast Passage (aka., Russian side) of the Arctic. They are planning to return before the end of season. Meanwhile, they are scrambling around the EU making deliveries and possibly picking up stuff for their return trip.

I'm going to send a note to the marine tracking services to see what it would take to monitor traffic through the Arctic next year. The 'free' system use shore-based, radios to track ships, part of an anti-collision system. But the Soviets/Russians never implement any part of this network for their side the Arctic. I don't think the Canadians and USA/Alaska did on their Arctic shores. There just wasn't enough traffic to justify the system. However, there are newer, satellite systems that should give Arctic tracking.

BTW, I stumbled across a description of how satellites non-optically track sea ice . . . wave motion. There are multiple satellites that use microwave (i.e., radar) returns to detect wave motion. Only ice has no motion. This also gives surface current and wave height. Clever!



Return trip:

• Sept 4, 2015 - Yong Sheng departed from Hamburg
  
• Sept 8, 2015 - Yong Sheng is off the Norwegian coast, 13 knots, headed to Busan, S. Korea
• Sept 9, 2015 - Course 66 degrees, gradually turning East, WNW of Nordkapp Norway
• Sept 22, 2015 - Equinox, when ice begins to accumulate, again
• Sept 29, 2015 - T-AIS tracking resumes off the S. Korean coast, ~20 days to transit NorthEast passage
• Sept 29, 2015 - Docked

Other data points:

• Aug 28, 2015 - North Pole melt ice covered with ice and snow

Other news:

. . .
The Snow Dragon paid several hundred thousand dollars to Russian maritime authorities, largely as mandatory fees for crossing parts of Russia’s exclusive economic zones and also for an escort in the form of a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker. Despite these additional costs, the voyage still worked out cheaper than the alternative.

“One day shaved off the voyage means a great reduction in labor costs and a 27 ton saving on fuel,” said Li Jianxiong, COSCO’s board representative.

The Northeast Passage has been a going concern in summer for at least five years, ever since two 10,000-ton German freighters traversed the route in summer without encountering difficulty.

The 3,000-nautical-mile Arctic waterway off Russia’s northern coast, also known as the North Sea Route, is now navigable for about two months in summer due to the retreat of pack ice in the Arctic. Climate change is expected to increase this navigable window to four months or longer by 2020, boosting the commercial value of Arctic waterways.
. . . ​

Source: In Cold Water | NewsChina Magazine

Well done China.

Bob Wilson

 

Western Antarctica sea ice is thinning rapidly which will unblock the glaciers.

Bob Wilson

 

Nice way to reach the end of this 2015 thread: Arctic Report Card

Maximum sea ice extent on 25 February was 15 days earlier than average and the lowest value on record (1979-present). Minimum ice extent in September was the 4th lowest on record. Sea ice continues to be younger and thinner: in February and March 2015 there was twice as much first-year ice as there was 30 years ago.
. . .
Air temperatures in all seasons between October 2014 and September 2015 exceeded 3°C above average over broad areas of the Arctic, while the annual average air temperature (+1.3°) over land was the highest since 1900.
. . .
The 2nd lowest June snow cover extent on land continued a decrease that dates back to 1979, while river discharge from the great rivers of Eurasia and North America has increased during that time.
. . .
Melting occurred over more than 50% of the Greenland Ice Sheet for the first time since the exceptional melting of 2012, and glaciers terminating in the ocean showed an increase in ice velocity and decrease in area.​

Must be 'magic' to those who reject the CO{2} metrics and models.

Bob Wilson

 

There are two graphs from the same source:

1. Ocean and Ice Services | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut - obsolete.
   
2. Ocean and Ice Services | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut - complete.

Here I've overlaid the misleading graph over the complete graph that agrees with other, independent sources:

The chart with the misleading, lower, Arctic ice coverage blocks out the shore ice, ~3 million square kilometers. It appears to be a popular graph by anti-climate change, propagandists and their syncopates.

Bob Wilson