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Global warming jeopardizing ice highways
last update: May 30, 2011 02:09 PM
From various "Globe and Mail" articles: According to a new research; the warming climate could melt away the winter lifelines, the iceroads that are the frozen arteries of Canada’s northernmost lands, a network of roads built on icy rivers, lakes and muskeg that bring supplies to mines and towns across the country.
Provinces, territories and companies build some 5,400 kilometres of ice roads in Canada every year, providing a way in for critical items such as diesel, gas and groceries.
Three geographers from the University of California, Los Angeles, report in the journal Nature that, by the middle of this century, Canada is likely to lose nearly 400,000 square kilometres of land accessible by winter road. Scott Stephenson, a physical geographer and PhD student who is the study’s lead author, said “This is a transportation system that is going to be profoundly affected by a warming climate in an adverse direction.”
The researchers based their work on a sophisticated climate model developed by the National Center for Atmospherice Research in Boulder, Colorado. The model suggests the Arctic will see warming more extreme than the rest of the world. Where the planet is expected to see a two to four degree Celsius gain in temperature by the end of the century, projections show the Arctic temperature increasing by two to nine degrees – and as much as 11 degrees in winter.
By midcentury, a window of years from 2045-2059, the researcher project that three major Arctic shipping corridors will be completely open to moderately ice-reinforced vessels from July to September. Those are the Northern Sea Route, a route across the top of Russia also known as the North East Passage; the North Pole route, which would allow vessels to sail directly over the top of the globe; and the Arctic Bridge, a route that connects Churchill, Man., with the Russian port of Murmansk via the east coast of Greenland. In fact, the Arctic Bridge is already fully open to marine traffic today, the researchers found.
However, John Zigarlick, chairman of Nuna Logistics, said referring to the Ice Roads “I don’t see a real major problem for some time to come because planners can compensate for shorter seasons by concentrating traffic during those times, and use of improved water access could help to offset winter road declines."
David Barber, a professor at the University of Manitoba and Canada Research Chair in Arctic Systems Science, said “At the trajectory we’re on, we’re going to be out of multiyear ice very quickly in the northern hemisphere. People argue right now the North East Passage is already open. I would say you’ll be able to use the over-the-pole route very soon as well.”
Read:
Globe & Mail, 29th May 2011
Globe & Mail, 29th May 2011
