Ships cross Arctic passage in milestone

Scientists say global warming opens ice-choked passages

FRANKFURT – Two German ships became the first commercial vessels to traverse the Arctic’s Northeast Passage, their owner reported Friday, having arrived in Siberia from South Korea by traveling around Russia’s northern coast line.

The merchant ships MV Beluga Fraternity and MV Beluga Foresight made it “through the formerly impenetrable Northeast Passage from Asia to Europe for the first time,” Beluga Shipping GmbH said in a statement.

Scientists report that the Arctic Ocean ice cap has been shrinking to unprecedented levels in recent summers, because of global warming, opening many passages that were ice-choked in earlier times.

In July, new NASA satellite measurements showed that sea ice in the Arctic was not just shrinking in area, but thinning dramatically.

Niels Stolberg, the president of Beluga, which is based in Bremen, Germany, called it the first time a Western shipping company successfully transited the Northeast Passage.

MSNBC