Northwest Passage and sea-level rise
The Northwest Passage is a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada, historically sought after for its potential to facilitate trade and exploration. In recent years, climate change has significantly impacted the region, leading to decreased sea ice and making the passage more navigable during summer months. This shift has raised concerns about environmental consequences, as open waters absorb more solar energy, further accelerating ice melt and contributing to rising sea levels.
While the potential for commercial shipping routes in the Arctic is increasing due to climate warming and the demand for natural resources, the melting ice presents unpredictable challenges for navigation. As the Arctic becomes more accessible, the region’s wealth of hydrocarbon deposits attracts industrial interest, which could exacerbate environmental issues, including pollution and thermal changes in the ocean. Some scientists suggest that this industrialization may create a feedback loop that accelerates climate change, complicating projections for future ice conditions.
Despite these developments, there remains uncertainty among climatologists regarding the long-term patterns of Arctic warming, with some attributing changes to natural cycles rather than solely human activity. The interplay between economic interests and environmental realities in the Northwest Passage raises important questions about sustainable practices and the global implications of a warming climate.
Northwest Passage and sea-level rise
Definition
In the 1400s and early 1500s, Portuguese and Spanish navigators developed routes to the rich oriental spice trade going south of Africa and South America, respectively. Their rivals, England and France, hoped to find another, shorter route. They sought a way west at the north end of North America—the Northwest Passage. Many expeditions failed, often tragically, to find an ice-free northwest passage through the maze of islands west of Greenland in the Canadian north. Their attempts pitted them against the polar cold and floating pack ice of the Arctic Ocean.
Finally, in 1903, Roald Amundsen allowed his small ship, Gjoa, to be locked in ice and drift westward for three years, until it melted free on the Alaska side. That was an exploring feat, but it had no commercial potential. Likewise, the 1969 passage of the supertanker Manhattan was a nautical triumph but a commercial failure, because it required assistance from two icebreakers and repairs afterwards.
Since then, two things have changed: The climate has warmed, and the Arctic’s have become better known and more sorely desired. The Little IA reached its coldest point in the early 1800s, and world temperatures have moved generally higher ever since (with cooling retreats such as the 1880s to through about 1910 and the early 1940s through the mid-1970s). Beginning in the mid-1970s, temperature increases resumed and increased more steeply. This increase has been ascribed to the of global warming caused by higher levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), which slows the escape of heat through the Earth’s atmosphere.
By the mid-1980s, cruise ships began making summer cruises through many Northwest Passage waters. In 2007, the summer melt reduced the extent of Arctic ice to its smallest area since comprehensive satellite data were collected beginning about 1970. The Northwest Passage was largely ice free for several weeks before the cold returned. Moreover, those open summer waters replace the near total solar reflectivity of polar ice with the near total solar absorption of dark, open water. Several climate models suggest that all of the Arctic pack ice may melt in summers by 2100, or even much sooner. By 2024, ships were still able to chart paths through the Arctic for a portion of the year. However, the unpredictable nature of melting sea ice made it difficult to path safe routes through the region. Scientists predict that the route will grow more dangerous in the future.
Beside climate change, development is coming to the entire Arctic region, because world demand for petroleum and natural gas may soon exceed production both because of continued economic growth and exhaustion of a number of existing deposits. Meanwhile, about a quarter of the world’s hydrocarbon deposits ring the Arctic from the Norwegian Sea through Siberia, Alaska, and northern Canada.
Significance for Climate Change
The fabled Northwest Passage may soon become a functional reality because of the confluence of climate warming, the resource wealth of the Arctic, and the Arctic’s central position between Europe and East Asia. These factors could make a navigable Arctic Ocean “the Mediterranean of the north.” However, there is still doubt about a functioning Northwest Passage. A minority group of climatologists suggests that most of the warming in the Arctic since the early 1800s is due to natural cycles. They posit that the mechanisms of global change are still only dimly understood, and that computer modelers are applying mere decades of firm data against processes that operate over millennia. Consequently, the recent melting could be replaced by cold and increased pack ice comparable to the 1800s or beyond any in recorded history.
Still, the general pattern of two centuries has been of warming climate and decreased ice. This suggests that offshore drilling and even coal mining will progress northward into the various seas of the Arctic Ocean. It suggests that thousands of ships will ply that waterway, either through Canadian waters or through a longer but serviceable route north of Russia (the Northeast Passage). Once in place, it may be a factor for increased global warming for four reasons.
First, incidental pollution and accidental spills are inevitable. Pollution tends to melt ice. Soot on ice or snow increases melting by increasing absorption. Any major petroleum spills would result in black, absorbing areas on, in, and beneath the ice for decades, because petroleum-digesting bacteria function slowly at near freezing temperatures.
Second, major industrial development also brings thermal pollution that could significantly increase melting of the pack ice. Moreover, there is a major limitation to cooling waters compared to temperate regions. The Arctic Ocean has an unusual thermal structure, with warm, salty water reaching the Arctic Ocean but diving under a major layer of less-dense freshwater. The deeper waters are often a degree above freezing, and they are more saline, which hinders them from freezing. Thus, bringing cooler waters from the depths is not an option.
Third, industries and governments making sizeable investments in ports, icebreaking ships, and mining facilities would not gladly surrender those treasures to returning ice. The first two mechanisms could be applied deliberately to melt ice. Fourth, activities to enforce sovereignty claims, such as building bases, would also contribute to warming.
The sheer volume of Arctic ice makes it difficult to predict the full climatological consequences of its melting. One climate theory has held that an ice-free Arctic in winter would provide sufficient water vapor for vastly increased snowfall on surrounding lands, perhaps enough to generate a new ice age.
Bibliography
Easterbrook, Gregg. “Global Warming: Who Loses—and Who Wins?” The Atlantic 299 (April 2007): 52-64.
Hall, Sam. The Fourth World: The Heritage of the Arctic and Its Destruction. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
"Melting Sea Ice Is Making the Northwest Passage More Dangerous." Yale Environment 360, 15 July 2024, e360.yale.edu/digest/melting-sea-ice-northwest-passage-climate-change. Accessed 20 Dec. 2024.
Moss, Sarah. The Frozen Ship: The Histories and Tales of Polar Expeditions. New York: Blue Bridge, 2006.
Open University Course Team. Case Studies in Oceanography and Marine Affairs. New York: Pergamon Press, 1991.