A graphical comparison between the Northern Sea Route (blue) and a southern route (red). The Northern Sea Route is a shipping lane officially defined by Russian legislation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean running along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait and Far East. The entire route lies in Arctic waters and parts are free of ice for only two months per year. Before the beginning of the 20th century it was called the Northeast Passage. Captions: ©© Wikipedia. Image source: ©© Kazakhstan / Bobamnertiopsis
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The Northeast Passage, the sea route along the North coast of Russia, is expected to be free of ice early again this summer.
The forecast was made by sea ice physicists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association based on a series of measurement flights over the Laptev Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean.
Among experts the shelf sea is known as an “ice factory” of Arctic sea ice. At the end of last winter the researchers discovered large areas of thin ice not being thick enough to withstand the summer melt…
