Submission + - Impassable Northwesth Passage is open (esa.int)
An anonymous reader writes: The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its lowest level this week, opening up the Northwest Passage — a long-sought short cut between Europe and Asia that has been historically impassable. Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said: "We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3 million sq km which is about 1 million sq km less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006. There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq km per year on average, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is extreme.
