Daily BrewNorthwest Passage voyage shows climate change impact on Arctic
I have mixed feelings about news a sailboat named Belzebub II has managed to make its way safely through the northernmost route of the Northwest Passage.
On one hand, the voyage by Canadian Nicolas Peissel, Swede Edvin Buregren and American Morgan Peissel, is a tremendous feat of seamanship.
On the other hand, the fact they could do it in a nine-metre-long, 35-year-old fibreglass sailboat underscores the effect of climate change on the Arctic.
That was one of the expedition's objectives, CTV News reports. The three-month westward voyage through M'Clure Strait into the Beaufort Sea was intended to expose the extent of the melting polar ice caps.
The crew shot video and photographs to show the reduction in Arctic ice, which scientists say appears to be melting much faster than forecasted.
The National Snow and Ice Data Centre reported Arctic sea ice shrank to a record low of 4.09 million square kilometres this summer and is likely to melt more in the next few weeks, CTV News said. The previous record low was 4.17 million square kilometres in 2007.
[ Related: Arctic tourism heating up as Northwest Passage melts ]
Peissel told the National Post that until the Belzebub II made the trip, only a Russian icebreaker had completed the Northwest Passage through M'Clure Strait.
"The reduction of sea ice here made it possible for us to do a voyage that for hundreds of years blocked explorers," he said. "And we've managed to do this in a 30-foot-fibreglass boat with no ice reinforcements.
"To be the first sailboat to ever accomplish this route is quite telling of the environmental change taking place up here."
Despite the relative lack of ice, Peissel said it definitely wasn't a holiday cruise.
"When we sailed through this channel, we didn't know whether we could make it to the other side before the ice closed in," he told the Post. "That could potentially mean spending the winter stuck in the ice. We never quite knew what was going to happen."
In its article on the achievement, SailWorld.com noted the three adventurers aren't out of danger yet.
"They are heading to the Bering Sea at the height of storm season," the article noted.
The journey is updated regularly on a Swedish-language website that includes maps, photos and video.
Scientist David Barber told CTV News polar ice caps appear to be melting at an incredible rate.
"When I started to think about climate change and the effects it was having, I thought 2100 would probably be the time we would see a seasonably ice-free Arctic," said Barber, a professor at the University of Manitoba's Centre for Earth Observation Science.
"I'm now saying somewhere between 2015 and 2030."
You can watch more videos shot aboard Belzebub II such as the day they spotted numerous whales on their YouTube channel.
