"Harry Hope" wrote in message
...

http://www.examiner.com/x-12720-DC-E...-than-expected

October 15

By JoAnn Blake


The Arctic ice cap to become an open sea in our lifetime?


Perahps he talking about 1817?

quote
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th
November,
1817

--"It will without doubt have come to your Lordship's knowledge
that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us,
must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of
the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high
northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the
last two
years, greatly abated.

(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been
opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be
more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that
discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement
of
science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of
distant nations."

/quote

Or, maybe this one from this past year:

quote
Cold Irony: Arctic Sea Ice Traps Climate Tour Icebreaker

Kapitan Khlebnikov - The Kapitan Khlebnikov was built in Finland in 1981
and is one of three vessels of this class. Not simply an ice-reinforced
ship, the Kapitan Khlebnikov is a powerful polar class icebreaker, which has
sailed to extremely remote corners of the globe with adventurous travelers
since 1992. It was the first ship ever to circumnavigate Antarctica with
passengers in 1996-97. See more on this vessel at Wikipedia

from the globe and mail:
May 24th 2008:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article39756.ece


I am on the bridge of the massive Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, and
the tension is palpable. We have hit ice - thick ice.
We are travelling from the northeastern corner of Russia, across the Bering
Sea and the top of Canada to Resolute Bay in Nunavut. At least that's the
plan. We haven't even reached Canadian waters and we are already in trouble.

The ice master studies the mountains of white packed around the ship while
the 24,000-horsepower diesel engines work at full throttle to open a path.
The ship rises slowly onto the barrier of ice, crushes it and tosses aside
blocks the size of small cars as if they were ice cubes in a glass. It
creeps ahead a few metres, then comes to a halt, its bow firmly wedged in
the ice. After doing this for two days, the ship can go no farther.

The ice master confers with the captain, who makes a call to the engine
room. The engines are shut down. He turns to those of us watching the drama
unfold, and we are shocked by his words: "Now, only nature can help this
ship." We are doomed to drift.

What irony. I am a passenger on one of the most powerful icebreakers in the
world, travelling through the Northwest Passage - which is supposed to
become almost ice-free in a time of global warming, the next shipping route
across the top of the world - and here we are, stuck in the ice, engines
shut down, bridge deserted. Only time and tide can free us

There are many sea captains noticing difficulty in their ice routes

quote
RUSSIAN sea captain Dimitri Zinchenko has been steering ships through the
pack ice of Antarctica for three decades and is waiting to see evidence of
the global warming about which he has heard so much.

Zinchenko's vessel, the Spirit of Enderby, was commissioned in January last
year to retrace the steps of the great Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton,
marking the century of his Nimrod expedition of 1907-09.

Spirit of Enderby was blocked by a wall of pack ice at the entrance to the
Ross Sea, about 400km short of Shackleton's base hut at Cape Royds.
Zinchenko says it was the first time in 15 years that vessels were unable to
penetrate the Ross Sea in January. The experience was consistent with his
impression that pack ice is expanding, not contracting, as would be expected
in a rapidly warming world. "I see just more and more ice, not less ice."
/quote

and

quote
Rodney Russ, whose New Zealand company Heritage Expeditions has operated
tourist expeditions to Antarctica for 20 years, agrees. He says ships
regularly used to able to reach the US base of McMurdo in summer, but ice
has prevented them from doing so for several years.

"Vessels are usually stopped 8km to 14km short of the base. A few years ago,
that was often open water," Russ says.

"We have experienced quite severe ice conditions over the past decade. I
have seen nothing in this region to suggest global warming is having an
effect."
/quote

We saw LESS ice melt this year then last, and with the global cooling right
now, we likely see even more ice this year again...

Super Turtle