Dispatches from Ice Station Barry

[vaskidmark]

Stolen brazenly from InstaPundit"

DISPATCHES FROM ICE STATION BARRY:

    As the United States and Russia eye new shipping routes in the melting Arctic, political and military leaders in Washington are pointing to a crucial gap in the one type of vessel that can turn frozen waters into reliable lanes for commerce or national defense.

    Icebreakers — the ships that smash through sea ice, opening routes for other craft and rescuing trapped vessels — are increasingly important to navigating in the far north. Russia has 40 of them, including nuclear-powered craft painted an intimidating red and black.

OK, riddle me this: if the polar ice caps are shrinking, why do we need more icebreakers to break trough the ice that is no longer there?

stay safe.

[TommyGunn]

The ice thins and breaks up in summer (which is just coming to it's end so the melting would be at it's max) and then we cycle back through winter and the icepack reforms. 

[Ben]

The ice thins and breaks up in summer (which is just coming to it's end so the melting would be at it's max) and then we cycle back through winter and the icepack reforms. 

But of course. We wouldn't want to promote OMG AGW in Alaska in November. Anyone remember the classic image of the "stranded" polar bear via the miracle of setting up the photo? Zooming out to the full scene showed land and ice for as far as the eye could see.

Or Obama's "It sure is hot - deniers are stupid" speech in Key West in the Summer.

[Angel Eyes]

"MR. PRESIDENT, WE CANNOT ALLOW AN ICEBREAKER GAP!!!"

[vaskidmark]

The ice thins and breaks up in summer (which is just coming to it's end so the melting would be at it's max) and then we cycle back through winter and the icepack reforms. 

So you are saying that the icecaps melt in the summer, rising the ocean levels and drowning out everything for x miles from the current coastline, but in the winter they will refreeze and all the "excess" water will get sucked back to be used to make rather large ice cubes?

Either we are having globular man-made anthropogenic warming or we are not.  It's not a seasonal thing like watermelon wine.  Or is it?

stay safe.

[Tallpine]

I suppose that the frost we had in the middle of August was part of global warming also 

[TommyGunn]

So you are saying that the icecaps melt in the summer, rising the ocean levels and drowning out everything for x miles from the current coastline, but in the winter they will refreeze and all the "excess" water will get sucked back to be used to make rather large ice cubes?

Either we are having globular man-made anthropogenic warming or we are not.  It's not a seasonal thing like watermelon wine.  Or is it?

stay safe.

Try an experiment:   put an ice cube in a glass of water, making sure to fill the glass up to the absolute brim.   The surface of the water should be level with the edge of the glass ...  maybe a fraction higher due to surface tension, but it doesn't  have to be.
Watch  the ice cube melt.
Watch the water overflow and dribble down the side.........NOT.
WON'T HAPPEN.
Water expands as it freezes and contracts as it liquefies....the glass won't be  "more full"  as the ice  melts.
The north  pole is an ice cap over an  ocean. That's why the world's first  nuclear sub, the Nautilus,  could travel under the Arctic  ice cap  back in the  1950s.

[vaskidmark]

.
WON'T HAPPEN.
.

But the Algore says it will so flood for several hundred miles inland from the current coastline.

Are you saying the Algore lied? [/sarcasm]

stay safe.

[dm1333]

The ice hasn't just magically disappeared but as it thins it allows us to get to areas we couldn't access before.  It doesn't mean there is no ice there just that it is thin enough to make things like drilling for oil or pushing shipping traffic through new routes possible.  The article I provided a link to is long but worth the read.

Nearly a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas may lie under the Arctic seabed; for commercial shippers, the opening of the Northern Sea Route would shorten voyages between China and Europe. Russia held massive military exercises in the Arctic earlier this year, and both countries have national Arctic strategies that identify icebreakers as key to their ambitions, according to Victoria Herrmann, the U.S. director of the Arctic Institute.

But Russia is far better prepared: in addition to its 40 active ships, it has six more under construction and two more planned beyond that, according to numbers compiled by the Arctic Institute’s Ryan Uljua, who is cobbling together an inventory of the world’s icebreakers.

It might seem that a warming Arctic would require less icebreaking, not more. But as northern waters become more accessible, far more ship traffic will be at risk, and their shifting climate conditions make it more likely seas will freeze unpredictably.

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/09/the-icebreaker-gap-000213

[RoadKingLarry]

Try an experiment:   put an ice cube in a glass of water, making sure to fill the glass up to the absolute brim.   The surface of the water should be level with the edge of the glass ...  maybe a fraction higher due to surface tension, but it doesn't  have to be.
Watch  the ice cube melt.
Watch the water overflow and dribble down the side.........NOT.
WON'T HAPPEN.
Water expands as it freezes and contracts as it liquefies....the glass won't be  "more full"  as the ice  melts.
The north  pole is an ice cap over an  ocean. That's why the world's first  nuclear sub, the Nautilus,  could travel under the Arctic  ice cap  back in the  1950s.

Been there, done that 

[MechAg94]

Since this thread sort of covers Obama's Arctic visit, I will leave this here.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/03/politics/obama-salmon-spawning-alaska/index.html

Salmon spawns on Obama in Alaska

[SADShooter]

Since this thread sort of covers Obama's Arctic visit, I will leave this here.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/03/politics/obama-salmon-spawning-alaska/index.html

"Have you talked with Planned Parenthood about your options? The ACA now gives you coverage."

[vaskidmark]

Since this thread sort of covers Obama's Arctic visit, I will leave this here.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/03/politics/obama-salmon-spawning-alaska/index.html

"He was happy to see me," Obama added.

Very glad to know that was not a banana in the salmon's pocket.

stay safe.

[roo_ster]

"Have you talked with Planned Parenthood about your options? The ACA now gives you coverage."

Heh.

[230RN]

I suppose that the frost we had in the middle of August was part of global warming also  

Your sample is too small... same as the short-term "samples" the Warmists try to foist off on us as Evidence of Great Danger.

So anyhow, so here's a dumb question:

So here's an icebreaker of whatever national origin busting through the ice, with commercial shipping from their country following along  behind in their now-watery trail.

So why can't commercial shipping from still another country follow along in that same watery trail behind the commercial ships following the icebreaker.

I mean, does any country have some kind of "proprietary rights" to the watery trail they left behind?

Told ya it was a dumb question.

Terry

[MillCreek]

^^^I believe I have seen pictures of that very thing in terms of supplying the scientific stations in Antarctica.  Essentially a supply convoy with a US, Australian or other nation's icebreaker at the lead.

[dm1333]

Your sample is too small... same as the short-term "samples" the Warmists try to foist off on us as Evidence of Great Danger.

So anyhow, so here's a dumb question:

So here's an icebreaker of whatever national origin busting through the ice, with commercial shipping from their country following along  behind in their now-watery trail.

So why can't commercial shipping from still another country follow along in that same watery trail behind the commercial ships following the icebreaker.

I mean, does any country have some kind of "proprietary rights" to the watery trail they left behind?

Told ya it was a dumb question.

Terry

Not a dumb question.  The ice re freezes.  Ice breakers are also useful when ships get stuck.  If you only have one heavy ice breaker and two ships get stuck in 2 separate places you have an issue.  Or you could need more than one ice breaker to break out stuck traffic.  That is why we have multiple ice breakers on the Great Lakes.

[Tallpine]

Not a dumb question.  The ice re freezes.  Ice breakers are also useful when ships get stuck.  If you only have one heavy ice breaker and two ships get stuck in 2 separate places you have an issue.  Or you could need more than one ice breaker to break out stuck traffic.  That is why we have multiple ice breakers on the Great Lakes.

Or, conversation could come to a halt 

[230RN]

What I was getting at and not clear about it was, what if an antagonistic (but not at war with)nation's shipping followed right along behind the icebreaker's convoy?

Would the "Icebreaker Nation" have any claim to some kind of maritime proprietary rights to the water lane it just created?

[BlueStarLizzard]

The ice hasn't just magically disappeared but as it thins it allows us to get to areas we couldn't access before.  It doesn't mean there is no ice there just that it is thin enough to make things like drilling for oil or pushing shipping traffic through new routes possible.  The article I provided a link to is long but worth the read.

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/09/the-icebreaker-gap-000213

But I thought the thick ice forms in different places. Some years it's real thick in one area, other years it goes in in a different direction, all of which is caused by currents and weather patterns.

So, you may have less ice in a place you usually can't get too, but there could be a lot more ice in a another place.

(I vaguly recall some global warming busting "the ice is all melting!!1! Not!" article some years back about how Greenpeace types were bitching about one edge of the ice cap had substantial lose and the article was pointing out how another edge had been steadily increasing, so the total area was now actually more)

[Firethorn]

OK, riddle me this: if the polar ice caps are shrinking, why do we need more icebreakers to break trough the ice that is no longer there?

Previously the ice was so thick and year-round that it was not navigational, period.

With the shrinking, they're looking at new rounds going up NORTH over Canada/Russia to get to markets, but while these routes were previously just not available, they're still going to be ice choked unless the warming gets really, really bad. 

To mix up rock and ice - imagine you have a mountain.  Through use of copious amounts of explosives/warming, you clear out a pass.  However, in order to keep the pass clear enough for trucks, you're going to need more plows/ice breakers.

So you are saying that the icecaps melt in the summer, rising the ocean levels and drowning out everything for x miles from the current coastline, but in the winter they will refreeze and all the "excess" water will get sucked back to be used to make rather large ice cubes?

Either we are having globular man-made anthropogenic warming or we are not.  It's not a seasonal thing like watermelon wine.  Or is it?

It's both and neither.  While the ice is melting in the northern hemisphere in the summer, it's collecting in the southern hemisphere for their winter.  Then you add on a number of cycles and other variables - solar activity, jet stream activity, etc...

Trying to haul man-made global warming into it this way is just a good way to get looked at like you're stupid by the scientists.  If 'global warming' or 'global climate change' as is preferred today raises the average temperature of the world by 1F, That means that rather than having a low of -33F, it's now -32F.  Rather than having a high of 80F, now we have a high of 81F.  Which means that up here in Alaska, a little more water melts in the summer, and a little less freezes in the winter, at least until a new equilibrium is reached.  The melt generally ends up in the oceans.  The viable farmland creeps a little farther north because the ground thaws a little quicker, and doesn't freeze quite as early.  Etc....

So why can't commercial shipping from still another country follow along in that same watery trail behind the commercial ships following the icebreaker.

I mean, does any country have some kind of "proprietary rights" to the watery trail they left behind?

'Refreeze' - Basically, any country's ships can follow the icebreaker, and I wouldn't restrict even the 'primary' types to the same country, more 'who's paid the icebreaker fee'? - And the general answer to that is that if you haven't paid the icebreaker's fees, you're not part of the convoy and thus are stuck on your own if refreeze happens to catch you.  Because you're the furthest from the ice breaker, you're the most at risk.

[vaskidmark]

All this scientifical stuff is just making my head hurt.  The Algore told me the ice was shrinking and I will need to either move to a mountain top or learn o tread water.  It's so much easier to believe what the Algore tells me than read and think about and analyze all that scientifical stuff.  [/sarcasm]

stay safe.

[dm1333]

The Algore was right, sort of.  Sea rise is currently about 3mm a year.  An inch in 8 years, about a foot in a hundred years.  Predictions are that the 3mm a year is going to increase.  As the ice melts and we send ships to areas we didn't used to send them to (discounting RKL getting there by sub) the need for ice breakers is going to increase for a while.  How long?  I don't know.  Don't get wrapped around the axle on it, just think of the ice breakers as tow trucks there to help motorists who get stuck.  Except that those motorists don't have cargo's worth millions of dollars.

[dm1333]

But I thought the thick ice forms in different places. Some years it's real thick in one area, other years it goes in in a different direction, all of which is caused by currents and weather patterns.

So, you may have less ice in a place you usually can't get too, but there could be a lot more ice in a another place.

(I vaguly recall some global warming busting "the ice is all melting!!1! Not!" article some years back about how Greenpeace types were bitching about one edge of the ice cap had substantial lose and the article was pointing out how another edge had been steadily increasing, so the total area was now actually more)

Arctic ice is melting, opening up new areas to oil exploration and new shipping routes. 

[roo_ster]

The Algore was right, sort of.  Sea rise is currently about 3mm a year.  An inch in 8 years, about a foot in a hundred years.  Predictions are that the 3mm a year is going to increase.  As the ice melts and we send ships to areas we didn't used to send them to (discounting RKL getting there by sub) the need for ice breakers is going to increase for a while.  How long?  I don't know.  Don't get wrapped around the axle on it, just think of the ice breakers as tow trucks there to help motorists who get stuck.  Except that those motorists don't have cargo's worth millions of dollars.

Overall, sea ice is the same or greater, as the antarctic currently has record high levels of ice the last year.  Doubt that will contribute to rising seal levels much. 

Who knows, maybe we are headed into another serious cooling period and the seas will retreat a bit, enough to uncover lots of bronze & *lithic age archaological sites.