NW Passage

In a previous post I mentioned the Artic Northwest passage being open. Today I came across an article from the ESA (click here). Apparently the area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its lowest level this week since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years ago.

The ESA has created a mosaic using radar equipment aboard their Envisat satellite. The image is created from nearly 200 images acquired in early September 2007. The Northwest Passage is the orange line and the Northeast passage (partially blocked) is the blue line. The dark gray colour represents the ice-free areas, while green represents areas with sea ice.

UPDATE: Below is a picture from the NASA observatory which more clearly shows what is going on. The graph of sea ice melt shows the five-day mean sea ice extent for June through September. It compares values from 2007 with those from 2005 and the average (1979-2000).