An ironic consequence is that the controversy about the annual seal pup fishery / cull has be come a non-issue.

Seal pups need 60% ice cover 30 to 60 cm thick to survive.

With no place for pregnant seals to haul out on to give birth the pups are born in the water and drown, some washing up on shore.

Canadian Fisheries experts estimate 75% pup mortality in 2007, rising to 100% in 2010.

Unprotected shore line is not safe for adult seals or pups, which are welcome food for wolves and other predators.

Mother seals have tried raising pups on the shores of a few island wildlife refuges, but a bit of protected shoreline can’t make up for the disappearance of vast areas of sea ice in recent decades.

89,650 km^2 daily average loss through the 27th of August. 55,750 km^2 daily average loss over the 2003-2011 period through August 28th. I find that anything less than weekly rates really don’t have much value. IARC/JAXA uses a three day moving average, IIR.

Agree almost everyone seems to missing the huge increase in the rate of decline over August. Everyone should click on the graphic and really look at the August trend. Things are getting very screwy.

Open Arctic Ice will freeze about 1.3 meters thick over winter, so it ends up being part of the maximum extent again, thawing during the next melt season and adding to the feedback loop.

In the past those areas contained ice projecting 2 or 3 meters above sea level, and held up by 10s of meters of ice below seal level. That thick multi-year ice remained over the summer, keeping the minimum annual extent high.

That old ice is mostly gone, so the summer minimum declines.

In 1968 and 1969 the “Ice Ramming” MV Manhattan kept getting stuck in 20 meter ice ridges trying to bust its way through the McClure Parry International, Deep Water NW Passage at ice minimum. Since 2007 Manhattan would have had no trouble with McClure Parry.

The Manhattan had to be rescued repeatedly by uninvited and unwelcome CCG Ice Breaker escort, John A MacDonald, after the USCG Staten Island developed engine trouble and was unable to free itself.

Both times the Manhattan gave up and changed course to more dangerous, narrow, shallow water, passages farther south, entirely within Internationally recognized Canadian Territorial waters. Manhattan limped into port with holes in the outer hull big enough to drive freight trucks through.

Oil companies sent the non ice-strengthened oil barges Learmonth and Norburg into the same area earlier, in a reckless attempt to supply arctic drilling platforms by sea.

Those were single hulled barges used on the Great Lakes. The only provision for ice conditions was that Learmonth had been fitted with an “Alexbow”, which had some success with ice 1.5 meters thick on the Great lakes. That Axelbow was of no use against 20 meter, or more, ice ridges common in the arctic at that time. Learmonth was punctured and sank. Norborg proved impossible for the escorting tug to maneuver, being abandoned after 6 of it’s 8 oil tanks were punctured and ice wedged in one of the puncture holes.

images.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/63114/page/54

As US(A) Navy Chief Navigator and Oceanographer Admiral Titley points out, the McClure Parry Passage and the passage along Russia will be side shows when the arctic is ice free at the pole for 3 months a year.

You can follow the US(A) Navy Task Force Climate Change on Facebook.-)

http://www.facebook.com/NavyTFCC

Or down load the US(A) Navy Climate Change Roadmap from the web.

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=53562

This is an excellent result; the Northern Passages will now be open longer and ships with greater draughts will be able to pass through safely. This will lower shipping costs and end the current global recession. The concomitant sea level rise and accelerated melting of ice will also contribute to more navigable channels for global shipping – everyone wins! Environmentally conscious operators may even offer free cruises to polar bears, which is proof that libertarianism works.

AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming.