The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Maybe the ice is making a comeback but using this type of ancedotal evidence to suggest the climate might actually vary naturally is unscientific, I know

And another, longer term graph of sea ice. Note the mean extent is shrinking quite regularly. Also sea ice shrank by 50% in the 10 years between 1996 and 2007. It's back up a bit in the last 2 years but as the Senior Scientist at NSIDC says:

“It’s nice to see a little recovery over the past couple years, but there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen back in the 1970s. We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades.”

http://nsidc.org/news/press/20091005_minimumpr.html

SEA_ICE.jpg

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

2) The 'threatened' status of polar bears is not due to any actual data, but on projected habitat loss due to global warming. Again, circular - if there's no ice, there can't be polar bears right? And there can't be ice if there's global warming? a priori at its best.

Wow, lots of lists today...;) Starving just gave me 11 reasons why solar doesn't work.

I won't repost the NSIDC data that shows a 50% reduction in sea ice between 1996-2007. But I'm not sure how you can characterize their research as lacking any actual data. I understand that you're methodology is to wait until we're absolutely, 100% sure we have an issue, that is, wait until the bear population begins to shrink significantly before we address the issue but when habitat disappears, so do the species within that habitat.

And while I find your concern for all the other species in the Arctic charming, I'll stick to this one for now...

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

OK, I will repost since the two charts together make a much more powerful statement than each on its own. CO2 graph moving up for 50 years. Sea Ice extent moving down for 30 years...coincidence only? This is like arguing that the angle of the sun in winter doesn't cause the earth to cool. I'd find the denial humorous if it wasn't so dangerous.

Moana_Loa.jpg

SEA_ICE.jpg

[Diarmuid]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

And another, longer term graph of sea ice. Note the mean extent is shrinking quite regularly. Also sea ice shrank by 50% in the 10 years between 1996 and 2007. It's back up a bit in the last 2 years but as the Senior Scientist at NSIDC says:

http://nsidc.org/news/press/20091005_minimumpr.html

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The "longer" term data, you mean back around the time when self styled experts were proclaiming the following theory.

Here is the text of Newsweek’s 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling.


There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.
“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

The "longer" term data, you mean back around the time when self styled experts were proclaiming the following theory.

Excellent...looks like we've got that global cooling problem licked....

[c1ue]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Yes, again the attempt to show CO2 causes warming. Hasn't the 800 year lag of the original CO2 vs. temperature graph been already banged to death?

Well, let's look at your NSIDC sea ice data - here's a time lapse of the daily pics of Arctic ice from the full NSIDC archive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j8SG...layer_embedded


[media][/media]

Viewing the full 3 minutes shows that the Arctic ice variability is not only seasonal, it varies as to which areas become ice free/less icy from different years. Hard to reconcile with a consistent higher temperature.

Secondly the recent ice 'return' also is inconsistent with a higher mean temperature. That, or there are major other effects not discussed.

Perhaps the science is not settled yet? :eek:

We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades.”

NSIDC's track record hasn't been so good.

Far from the NSIDC 'ice free' summer predicted; in fact ice has increased since NSIDC's scaremongering prediction.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/050508.html

Spring has arrived in the Arctic. After peaking at 15.21 million square kilometers (5.87 million square miles) in the second week of March, Arctic sea ice extent has declined through the month of April. April extent has not fallen below the lowest April extent on record, but it is still below the long-term average.
Taken together, an assessment of the available evidence, detailed below, points to another extreme September sea ice minimum. Could the North Pole be ice free this melt season? Given that this region is currently covered with first-year ice, that seems quite possible.

Uh, slightly wrong there. :rolleyes:

And last but not least: CO2 at 500 ppm - ppm meaning parts per million. So again the magic of AGW CO2 is that 0.05% CO2 increase (presumably displacing/reducing relative weights of N2, O2, and water vapor) will increase temperatures by 0.6/(273+14.6) = 0.208%? So the CO2 will somehow trap/reradiate/generate/whatever 4x its volume in temperature? Or more specifically outweight the existing effects of 99.95% of the atmosphere including the already existing CO2? Sounds more like uranium.

But irregardless this is actually a very easy thesis to test.

Get a balloon full of CO2. Make sure it is at ambient temperature. Put it in a box with 78% N2, 21% O2, and the rest your choice. Place in sunlight and allow to reach 'ambient' temperature. Then dump contents of balloon into box and see if the temperature rises.

This is exactly what so called deniers point out: that if indeed CO2 is such a outrageously powerful warming force, then the temperatures over and around CO2 generating areas, as well as the temperatures in the atmospheric layers where CO2 tends to accumulate, should show this.

But there isn't any such behavior.

Furthermore if CO2 is such a powerful re-radiator, then there should similarly be extremely different behaviors between day and night.

Again, no so qualitative differences detected thus far.

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Secondly the 'ice 'return' also is inconsistent with a higher mean temperature. That, or there are major other effects not discussed.

Perhaps the science is not settled yet? :eek:

You see inconsistency in this data and I see a very solid trend. I hope the ice does return for many years in a row, but I'm not optimistic that there will be a trend reversal.

[c1ue]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

More 'inconsistencies':

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/200...GL039186.shtml

A 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during austral summer 2008–2009 according to spaceborne microwave observations for 1980–2009.

Oooh less melt this year than anytime since 1979? Must be colder...

The same author's work was hyped in 2006, 2007, and 2008 as evidence of 'global warming', but strangely no note taken of his latest offering.

A beautiful example of an agenda in action (or inaction)...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/...greenland.html

NASA Researcher Finds Days of Snow Melting on the Rise in Greenland
05.29.07


In 2006, Greenland experienced more days of melting snow and at higher altitudes than average over the past 18 years, according to a new NASA-funded project using satellite observations.

Image right: Satellite imagery shows the number of days in 2006 when melting occurred. The darker color blue areas had the most days of melting. Click image to enlarge. Credit: NASA/Robert Simmon and Marit Jentoft-Nilsen

Daily satellite observations have shown snow melting on Greenland’s ice sheet over an increased number of days. The resulting data help scientists understand better the speed of glacier flow, how much water will pour from the ice sheet into the surrounding ocean and how much of the sun’s radiation will reflect back into the atmosphere.

“We now have the ability to monitor melting snow on Greenland’s ice sheet on a daily basis using sensors on satellites measuring the electromagnetic signal naturally emitted by the ice sheet,” said Marco Tedesco, research scientist at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology cooperatively managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, Baltimore.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/env...ecordhigh.html

NASA Finds Greenland Snow Melting Hit Record High in High Places
09.25.07


A new NASA-supported study reports that 2007 marked an overall rise in the melting trend over the entire Greenland ice sheet and, remarkably, melting in high-altitude areas was greater than ever at 150 percent more than average. In fact, the amount of snow that has melted this year over Greenland is the equivalent of more than twice the surface size of the U.S.

Image right: Microwave data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imaging radiometer was used to create this image of the 2007 Greenland melting anomaly which reflects the difference between the number of melting days occurring in 2007 and the average number of melting days during the period 1988 – 2006. Credit: NASA/Earth Observatory

Marco Tedesco, a research scientist at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, cooperatively managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, used satellite data to compare average snow melting from 1988-2006 with what has taken place this summer.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=37215

The northern fringes of Greenland’s ice sheet experienced extreme melting in 2008, according to NASA scientist Marco Tedesco and his colleagues.

[Diarmuid]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Excellent...looks like we've got that global cooling problem licked....

Santafe2

I tend to see the AGW debate as a distraction - whether CO2 based warming is happening or not is largely irrelevant from my point of view, in so far as, the proposed "solutions" of cap and trade will do nothing to address the issue, rather they will resurrect and may well form the next bubble for wealth extraction for the foundational problem I believe to be at the heart of most of the issues humanity faces today, that is FIRE based Usury.

I however am very supportive of alternative solutions of wind, solar etc., in that they are a form of diversification and may help force us to live within our means and live sustainably, for sure they are not a panacea to our oil based agricultural and other economic activities, however hopefully they may be a start, and as such wish you and yours the best in your present and future business endeavours.

[c1ue]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

While we're at it - let's start carbon credit crime too:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oc...ing-fraudsters

An international carbon credits scam worth more than Ł1bn is being investigated by detectives in at least five European countries, including Britain, the Observer can reveal.
The fraud, originally co-ordinated by gangs in Spain and Britain, involves the buying and selling of emission allowances across borders in order to avoid VAT. The disclosure of the scale of the illegal trade in carbon credits will cause further consternation for the governments and environmental groups that set up the system to measure and limit emissions. It comes as the EU introduces rules to control the fraud.
Scotland Yard detectives and Revenue and Customs officers are involved in the investigation to track down gangs operating across Europe. Police in Italy, Spain, Denmark and Sweden are being co-ordinated by Europol, the European law enforcement agency.
A source close to the investigation said: "The inquiry has escalated. This is a Europe-wide operation and we are finding it difficult to keep up."
With only two months to go before the climate summit in Copenhagen, the EU wants to clean up the market as it tries to get its form of "cap-and-trade" carbon trading scheme adopted around the world as a key weapon against carbon emissions.
The EU carbon market is now worth about €90bn a year. It is the largely unregulated spot market that has been targeted this summer by fraudsters. Nine people were arrested in Britain in August on suspicion of being part of an organised crime group. It is alleged that they traded large volumes of credits.
Seven people were held in and around Gravesend, Kent, and Greater London in August and 27 properties were searched. A further two arrests have been made and all nine are now on bail. It is understood that most of the suspects are company directors and businessmen and live lavishly.
The scam works by the fraudster or company buying carbon credits from overseas VAT-free sources, then selling them to UK businesses at a VAT-inclusive price. The tax charged is never paid to Revenue and Customs.
It is another form of carousel, or "missing trader", fraud, which arises where standard-rated goods or services can effectively be traded VAT-free between EU countries.
A 2008 report estimated that the total in lost tax revenues from fraud across Europe is as high as €250bn, with €40bn down to VAT fraud alone.

Yep, 90 billion euros - no reason at all for hidden agendas.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/ca...0903-f9yy.html

AN AUSTRALIAN company has been swept up in a $100 million carbon trading scandal in Papua New Guinea.
The scandal has led to the removal of the head of the country's Office of Climate Change and has prompted an investigation into claims that fake carbon trading certificates were used to persuade landowners to sign over the rights to their forests.
It threatens to undermine efforts by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong to win support at UN climate talks for a global carbon trading scheme that would include forests in countries such as PNG and Indonesia. Senator Wong yesterday declined to answer questions on whether the scandal had been raised at UN climate talks last month, or whether she had discussed the crisis with PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare or his officials.
The chief executive of the company Carbon Planet, Dave Sag, admitted to The Age that his PNG partner, Kirk Roberts, used mocked-up carbon certificates signed by PNG's Office of Climate Change director Theo Yasause as ''props'' when negotiating with local landowners. But he denied PNG media reports that the certificates were stolen or intended to mislead.
Mr Sag said the certificates, which purport to represent 1 million tonnes of ''voluntary carbon credits'' issued by the UN under the ''Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation'' (REDD) scheme, were created by PNG officials simply to explain the scheme.
''Those certificates are worthless. They're not backed by anything. They really are props. No one who knows anything about carbon would take them in any way seriously'', he said. ''They ended up in Kirk's hands because they would have been produced as a prop to be taken out and waved in front of people in order to provide some physicality to what is essentially an ephemeral thing''.
Carbon Planet is expected to list on the stock exchange soon and told investors recently it had $100 million in potential REDD projects in PNG. Mr Sag said this figure came from ''estimates based on contracts we have in place''.
But PNG's new acting Climate Change Director, Dr Wari Iamo, warned landowners on Monday not to sign any carbon trading agreements over their forests as the scandal has escalated.
Mr Iamo said PNG has no laws or policies that cover carbon trading and even voluntary agreements ''are not currently supported by the Government''.

And here - a public listing - again no reason why 'demonstration' carbon credits might be misrepresented?

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Oooh less melt this year than anytime since 1979? Must be colder...

Whoa c1ue, you've switched hemispheres on me...;). Are you suggesting we move the polar bears south where the ozone hole and temporary climatic changes have given the Eastern Antarctic a brief respite?

This is from your first link, the report is not so upbeat as your quote might lead us to believe:

Our results suggest that enhanced snowmelt is likely to occur if recent positive summer SAM trends subside in conjunction with the projected recovery of stratospheric ozone levels, with subsequent impacts on ice sheet mass balance and sea level trends.

And another note regarding your less melt observation, which is not hemisphere centric so I'll use the Arctic sea ice as an example. If we start with ~8M km square of sea ice in 1980 and end with ~4M km square in 2007. We've lost 50% of our sea ice. If we again lose 50% of our sea ice over the next 27 years will have "less melt". But it doesn't make for a good story.

With regard to Arctic sea ice, we'll have to wait until next October to see what 2010 and the next few years after that bring. If sea ice continues to recover while CO2 continues to rise, I'll be more intrigued with your argument. Until then, I remain unconvinced.

Have a great weekend. I always appreciate your reasoned approach to this rather sticky subject.

[c1ue]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Whoa c1ue, you've switched hemispheres on me...;). Are you suggesting we move the polar bears south where the ozone hole and temporary climatic changes have given the Eastern Antarctic a brief respite?

Unlike the AGW crowd, I'm not saying the entire globe's temperature is going up due to CO2. Thus all that is necessary is to point out inconsistencies with this wrong thesis.

The real picture is much more nuanced than that and furthermore is very probably nowhere as catastrophic as has been claimed by Gore, Hansen, et al.

But then, who'd give them all that mind share and money?

A great weekend to you as well.

Despite our differences I still wish you well.

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Santafe2

I tend to see the AGW debate as a distraction - whether CO2 based warming is happening or not is largely irrelevant from my point of view, in so far as, the proposed "solutions" of cap and trade will do nothing to address the issue, rather they will resurrect and may well form the next bubble for wealth extraction for the foundational problem I believe to be at the heart of most of the issues humanity faces today, that is FIRE based Usury.

I however am very supportive of alternative solutions of wind, solar etc., in that they are a form of diversification and may help force us to live within our means and live sustainably, for sure they are not a panacea to our oil based agricultural and other economic activities, however hopefully they may be a start, and as such wish you and yours the best in your present and future business endeavours.

Thanks Diarmuid. I'm more concerned about climate change because I and my family can't escape it if indeed we're pushing the edges of the earth's ability to to support us as a species. The FIRE economy, unless we're willing to start a world war to save it, concerns me very little. We've spent over a decade re-calibrating our lives so we live in a way we can afford and a way that requires much less outside support.

If you don't like the FIRE economy, you have to starve it by living with as little debt as possible and a plan for living without debt.

[Diarmuid]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Thanks Diarmuid. I'm more concerned about climate change because I and my family can't escape it if indeed we're pushing the edges of the earth's ability to to support us as a species. The FIRE economy, unless we're willing to start a world war to save it, concerns me very little. We've spent over a decade re-calibrating our lives so we live in a way we can afford and a way that requires much less outside support.

If you don't like the FIRE economy, you have to starve it by living with as little debt as possible and a plan for living without debt.

Thanks santafe2

My personal debt is virtually non existent now - thank God. It is possible to insulate one self but I am not sure you can run away or avoid it.

The problems of top soil erosion, water depeletion, habitat destruction, AGW (if happening but which I am long way convinced is actual) are imo inextricably linked to usury - there will be no solving these myriad of issues till our exponential financial growth in a finite world is handled, imho.

I think the problem is somewhat summed up below,( although sustainability and resource renewal is not discussed, in a financial system where both are unprofitable (no growth), is it any wonder, depletion is the order of the day.)

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/20...finite-planet/

Below you’ll find Professor Daly’s short piece, The Crisis: Debt and Real Wealth:

The current financial debacle is really not a “liquidity” crisis as it is often euphemistically called. It is a crisis of overgrowth of financial assets relative to growth of real wealth - pretty much the opposite of too little liquidity. Financial assets have grown by a large multiple of the real economy - paper exchanging for paper is now 20 times greater than exchanges of paper for real commodities. It should be no surprise that the relative value of the vastly more abundant financial assets has fallen in terms of real assets. Real wealth is concrete; financial assets are abstractions - existing real wealth carries a lien on it in the amount of future debt.
The value of present real wealth is no longer sufficient to serve as a lien to guarantee the exploding debt. Consequently the debt is being devalued in terms of existing wealth. No one any longer is eager to trade real present wealth for debt even at high interest rates. This is because the debt is worth much less, not because there is not enough money or credit, or because “banks are not lending to each other” as commentators often say.
Can the economy grow fast enough in real terms to redeem the massive increase in debt? In a word, no. As Frederick Soddy (1926 Nobel Laureate chemist and underground economist) pointed out long ago, “you cannot permanently pit an absurd human convention, such as the spontaneous increment of debt [compound interest] against the natural law of the spontaneous decrement of wealth [entropy].”
The population of “negative pigs” (debt) can grow without limit since it is merely a number; the population of “positive pigs” (real wealth) faces severe physical constraints. The dawning realization that Soddy’s common sense was right, even though no one publicly admits it, is what underlies the crisis. The problem is not too little liquidity, but too many negative pigs growing too fast relative to the limited number of positive pigs whose growth is constrained by their digestive tracts, their gestation period, and places to put pigpens.

[thousandmilemargin]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Two reports just to add to my last point about the cold air further down the globe tells us about the warmer conditions further North.
Hugh Pickens writes "Andrew Revkin writes in the NY Times that since 1553, when Sir Hugh Willoughby led an expedition north in search of a sea passage over Russia to the Far East, mariners have dreamed of a Northern Sea Route through Russia's Arctic ocean that could cut thousands of miles compared with alternate routes. A voyage between Hamburg and Yokohama is only 6,600 nm. via the Northern Sea Route
less than 60% of the 11,400 nm. Suez route. Now in part because of warming and the retreat and thinning of Arctic sea ice in summer, this northern sea route is becoming a reality with the 12,700-ton 'Beluga Fraternity,' designed for a mix of ice and open seas, poised to make what appears to be the first such trip. The German ship picked up equipment in Ulsan, South Korea, on July 23 and arrived in Vladivostok on the 25th with a final destination at the docks in Novyy Port, a Siberian outpost. After that, if conditions permit, it will head to Antwerp or Rotterdam, marking what company officials say would be the first time a vessel has crossed from Asia to Europe through the Arctic on a commercial passage."

The story is misleading and would not have passed the most basic fact checking. From wikipedia:

"In 1932 a Soviet expedition led by Professor Otto Yulievich Schmidt was the first to sail all the way from Arkhangelsk to the Bering Strait in the same summer without wintering en route. After a couple more trial runs, in 1933 and 1934, the Northern Sea Route was officially open and commercial exploitation began in 1935. The next year, part of the Baltic Fleet made the passage to the Pacific where armed conflict with Japan was looming.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, commercial navigation in the Siberian Arctic went into decline.
................

The regional warming has brought about the possibility of navigating the North-East passage without the assistance of icebreakers during the warmer part of the year. Previously, Russian authorities would only permit vessels passage when assisted by Russian icebreakers, thus incurring prohibitive cost. Permission for vessels with reinforced hulls to pass without Russian assistance has only recently been granted.
The Frenchman Eric Brossier made the first passage by sailboat in one season only in summer 2002.^[2] He returned to Europe the following summer by the Northwest Passage.
The Northern Sea Route was opened by receding ice in 2005 but was closed by 2007. The amount of polar ice had receded to 2005 levels in August 2008. In late August 2008, it was reported that images from the NASA Aqua satellite had revealed that the last ice blockage of the Northern Sea Route in the Laptev Sea had melted. This would have been the first time since satellite records began that both the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route had been open simultaneously.^[3] However, other scientists suggested that the satellite images may have been misread and that the sea route was not yet passable. ^[4]
The Bremen-based Beluga Group claimed in 2009 to be the first Western company to attempt to the Northern Sea Route for shipping without assistance from icebreakers, cutting 4000 nautical miles off the journey between Ulsan, Korea and Rotterdam.
The heavy lift vessels Beluga Fraternity and Beluga Foresight did commence a passage of the Northern Sea Route. However they were escorted by the Russian nuclear icebreaker 50 Years Since Victory. By 12 September 2009, the ships had crossed from South Korea to Siberia.The two ships completed their goal on 19 September 2009. In completing this journey, they were the first commercial vehicles from the Western World to do so.The captain of the Beluga Foresight, Valeriy Durov, described the achievement as "great news for our industry".