From Hamburg to Tokyo is a long way off. To the 28,000 km ships had to create once and Africa around. Since 1869 there is a shorter route through the Suez canal in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean sea with the Red sea. The distance was only about 21,000 kilometers, but in the meantime, there is still a shortcut.
For a couple of months in the year, the so-called Sannikov road opens. When the sea ice melts, ships from Europe via the northeast passage. 13,000 kilometers only from Hamburg to Tokyo – an abbreviation of 8,000 kilometers (see graph).
Long the Route for cargo ships was not an Option. Sea ice covered the 50 kilometers wide and 100 kilometers long lake road. But in the meantime, the ice in the summer break show, as well as satellite images of the Nasa earth observation satellite “Landsat 8”.
The image above is the West side of the sea route maps and comes from the 27. June 2018, as the ice got in the summer, gradually cracks. The Maksibet image below is from the same Region, but in June 2016. Wind, currents and the melting of the ice had broken the ice in pieces. Black areas indicate open water. The blue Points indicate a greater thickness of the ice, the gray of a lower.
image of 5. June 2016
the freighter through the ice
For several years, the sea will open regularly in the summer and shipowners to try the way more and more often, in order to bring freight to a shorter path from Asia to Europe. In 2013, China sent, for example, the first cargo ship through the northeast passage. In September 2018 escort of an ice breaker, the 200-Meter-long and 36-Meter-wide “Venta Maersk” on the sea of Busan in South Korea to St. Petersburg in Russia. The ship has a carrying capacity of 42,000 tons.
photo
marine experts to see the development of critical. They fear that the ships will increasingly bring pollutants to the Arctic region and the Ecosystem at risk.
jme
