As ice melts, debate over Northwest Passage heats (click above link)
TORONTO — Melting ice is opening up the Northwest Passage and reviving a dispute between the United States and Canada over who controls the potentially lucrative shipping route.
The United States calls the passage an international strait, open to all. Canada claims control because it considers the passage an internal waterway, like the Mississippi River.
Until recently, the decades-long dispute has been mostly academic; thick sea ice blocks the passage for about 11 months of the year. But as global temperatures rise and polar ice caps melt, the ice-free season may lengthen, making the Northwest Passage a viable shipping route within decades or, the U.S. Navy says, even a few years.
Satellite photos show the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean is shrinking by about 3%-4% each decade, says John Falkingham, chief of ice forecasting for the Canadian Ice Service. The melt has accelerated, he says, to a rate of about 8% per decade since 2000. But because Arctic currents push drifting ice toward the Canadian archipelago, he predicts more ice in the passage for the near term. However, Falkingham says, "at the end of the century, there could be an extended summertime shipping season."
