Heavy pack ice in NW Passage ice creates tough conditions this year
- Nunavut's territorial newspaper in the Nunavut and Nunavik regions of the eastern Canadian Arctic. This map from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre shows heavy ice conditions on Sept. 6 in the Northwest Passage. Icebreakers and cruise ships travelling through the Northwest Passage encountered rough sailing conditions this past week: heavy ice closed the Queen Maud Gulf between the northern coast of the mainland and the southeastern corner of Victoria Island in Nunavut. While the rate of ice loss during August in the Arctic Ocean overall in 2014 was near average, the Northwest Passage continued to be clogged with ice and was unlikely to open, the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said in its most recent Arctic ice report. That’s because weather patterns are pushing more chunks of polar pack ice into the Northwest Passage than in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011. In those years, atmospheric conditions led to “minimal ice inflo...