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.