If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
As sea ice in the warming Arctic retreats more and more during summer, the fabled Northwest Passage is becoming a greater temptation. The route—actually a series of straits across northern Canada—would cut 3,000 miles off the voyage from New York City to Shanghai via the Panama Canal. But in practice, lingering ice is so unpredictable that a crossing remains risky and expensive. Arctic scientists think it will be many years before ships can make the passage regularly.
Credit: Katie Peek; Courtesy of NASA Worldview (satellite images); Sources: U.S. National snow and ice data center (annual ice extents); Canadian Ice Service (Viscount Melville Sound); FEDNAV (Nunavik); Crystal Cruises (Crystal Serenity)
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
Thank you,
Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American
