On thinning ice: Gradual thaw is bringing big changes to the Arctic

Climate change and global warming mean the fabled Northwest Passage could become an accessible thoroughfare. This stranger, warmer world carries many potential ramifications — for the environment, for international business and diplomacy and for the native Inuit people, who cling to tradition in an era when change already comes too fast. In the words of one expert, "It'd be a whole new world up there." (...)

So in the summer of 2000, Burton gingerly nosed a 66-foot aluminum patrol boat into the heart of the Northwest Passage. Ice floes could crumple the boat like paper. Even the smallest iceberg, a growler, could rip apart its delicate hull.

But there were no bergs. No growlers. No thin cakes of pancake ice. To his surprise, Burton found no ice at all. A mere 900 miles south of the North Pole, where previous explorers had faced sheets of punishing pack ice, desperation and finally death, Burton cruised past emerald lagoons and long sandy beaches. Crew members stripped and went swimming. Burton whipped through the passage, "not hurrying," in a mere 21 days.

"We should not, by any measure, have been able to drive an aluminum boat through the Arctic," said Burton, still astonished and just slightly disappointed. "It was surreal."
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