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Northwest Passage Reopens in Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean’s Ice Levels in August 2008

In the summer of 2007, as Arctic sea ice reached a record low, the Northwest Passage opened between Baffin Bay and McClure Strait, which is sufficiently large to allow large-scale shipping vessels to pass through. The ice is well above the lows reached last year and is not expected to fall too much more. Whether the Northwest Passage would open as far north as it did the previous year remained in question, but a second sea route that charts a more southerly route has begun to melt.

The map included above shows the Arctic as observed by NASA’s Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer satellite on August 5, 2007. Blue indicates open water, white indicates high sea ice concentration, and turquoise indicates loosely packed sea ice. The black dot represents the North Pole. Although ice blocks areas that opened in 2007, Peel Sound, Victoria Strait, Coronation Gulf, and Amundsen Gulf are largely ice-free.

Arctic Ocean’s Ice Levels Fell to Lowest on Record in 2007

Norway’s Roald Amundsen first crossed over the Artic Ocean along a southern route through the Northwest Passage between 1903 and 1906, becoming the first explorer to make such an achievement. In the decades that followed, southern portions of the Northwest Passage occasionally opened in late summer, but its longer route, narrower straits, and shallower depths make it a less it a less inviting shipping lane. Although the more favorable northern route was not open at the time this image was acquired, the possibility remained that the route will be ice-free before the summer’s melt season ends in September.