Arctic Gateway Route Relies On Global Warming To Thin The Ice

Stymied by opposition on the West Coast, the Alberta government has prepared a technical report outlining the possibility of an "arctic gateway" as an alternative means of getting their bitumen to market.

The entire report can be found here.  And below is a graphic showing some of the proposed routes out. (Note: click on the images for larger versions)

Contrary to news reports about it, the report authors seem to realize that their plan is a bit of a "hail Mary".  For example, it is "conceivable" that the plan could attract support among the local population "...if it can be done without undue risk to the environment..."  The text is filled with this kind of heavily qualified language.

 Furthermore, there is a handy chart which provides an economic benefits vs. environmental risk vs. "aboriginal subsistence value" ...

...which makes me think that it will be difficult to convince most of the First Nations in the area to sign on to the scheme.

And, ironically enough, the whole plan relies on global warning making the shipping season longer and therefore "... lessen required icebreaker escort/support, decrease transit times, and require much less ice-reinforcement of vessel hulls."  The entire eighth chapter is given over to discussing how the changes in the ice environment should enable increased tanker traffic in the area.

On the other hand, the passages relating to the effects of an arctic bitumen spill (possibly catastrophic), and the nation's preparedness for such a likelihood (0) make for some grim reading:

So there you have it.  Not really a serious alternative as far as I can tell.

Who You Would Destroy, You Must First Defund

...is I think how that one goes. If the Tories were really sceptical, the logical course would be to support The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) , as it is collecting data on the changing climate of the Far North. Instead, there will be a gap of several years until their High Arctic research station is complete, and by that time all the scientists capable of running it will have left the country. So: a shiny empty building in he middle of the tundra. Tory environmental policy in a nutshell.

Gunter On Ice

Not only has this news not received much reporting, but the fact that ice sensors in the North have been malfunctioning, which has very likely led to a further underestimating of the amount of ice around the pole.

"Very likely"? Well, there's no reason to speculate: the sensors in the North are back up and running:

...and they still show ice-extent way under the long-term average, and bouncing around the record lows of 2006-2007.

Arctic Sea Ice...Stalled Again

It's rate of recovery has dipped below the 2007-2008 average for the 1st time this year.

Gwyn Dyer On AGW Geo-Politics: We Should Give The Yankees All The Water They Need

A terrific, if grim, piece by Gwyn Dyer in this week's Embassy Magazine. My favorite bit:

"...the Americans are losing large chunks of agricultural production. They're going to have to evacuate parts of coastline. There are parts where you can't get insurance already.

"So they're going to be moving people around. And they're going to be very short of water. They're already short of water everywhere west of the Mississippi. They have built very large cities in effectively desert. I mean, even now it's really a desert, 40 million people. This is not a good plan.

"And they're going to need the water. And when they get seriously crippled by this, I don't think they're going to take no for an answer from Canada if it doesn't want to sell its water.

"In fact, I would go this far: We need to start selling the Americans water in the near future as soon as they want it and are willing to pay some nominal price for it because you want to put this exchange on a commercial basis before it becomes a strategic issue. And there are ways of doing it that don't harm us.

"But you sell them water now or soon they'll kick the door in. And actually, I would show them where the door is because they'd be right, they'd be within their rights. You cannot let your neighbours go short when you have a surplus. But there are ways of doing this that don't hurt our interests.

Also interesting are the comments re getting access to Canadian climate scientists. Short version: the gov wouldn't let him. He doesn't mention the arctic, however, which strikes me as an oversight. There are huge possibilities for armed conflict up there as the ice melts.

Gunter On Thin Ice

Because the long version is here, this will the short version. Lorne Gunter writes in this morning's Post re the melting Arctic and the "opening" of the Northwest Passage:

As Mr. [Noel] Sheppard points out, the great Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen navigated the Northwest Passage in 1905 in a wooden sailboat with a crew of just seven. The passage was sufficiently ice-free that year for the little craft to make it through with little ice-breaking capacity.

And in 1944, the tiny RCMP patrol vessel the St. Roch (which can still be seen at the Vancouver Maritime Museum) sailed from Halifax to Vancouver through the passage in a single season --a first --because it met little ice.

This is almost a word for word re-hack of a Noel Sheppard Blog Post from NuzeBuzzsters, so in honor of the sloppy journalism it represents, let me just note that:

1) Amundsen's ship, The Gjøa, was a shallow draft sail-boat. During the voyage, it travelled through water less than a foot deep. No other vessel could have followed its course and made that passage.

And, oh yes, it spent months stuck in the ice.

2) The St. Roch's success on its second trip through the Arctic (during the first it spent a winter...wait for it... stuck in the ice) was due as much to a specially designed, "ice fortified" hull that had itself been upgraded and reinforced for the journey, than it was to "ice free" conditions in the Arctic Sea.

The situation today is very different, and when people say that the Northwest Passage is "open" they mean "Open for Business", not that your boat just might squeak through if it has a reinforced hull and you are willing to spend weeks camping on an iceberg.