Arctic ice sparser since the Fram's voyage

If you're a northern person and find yourself in Oslo, Norway, you'll want to make a pilgrimage to the Fram Ship Museum. Ironically, about the time my wife and I were visiting the Fram, President Obama was declassifying CIA photos suppressed during the Bush presidency that dramatically show the extent to which Arctic sea ice has retreated.

The Fram is the ship the world's greatest Arctic explorer, Fridtjof Nansen, had built in 1893 to prove that Arctic ice flowed clockwise. A Professor Mohn had deduced this possibility by studying shipwreck finds such as the Jeanette, which was caught in ice off the Siberian coast. Fragments were found in Greenland.

The Fram is said to have been the strongest and warmest wooden ship ever built; several inches of wool felt lined the ship between the outer and inner layers of thick oak planking. Nansen and 12 Norwegians boldly sailed the Fram into the ice off the eastern Siberian coast, whereupon the angles and strength of its hull allowed it to be squeezed out of the ice and propped up rather than be crushed. Slowly and fitfully the Fram was born along by the ice pack and eventually popped out near Greenland three years later.

But this was no pleasure ride. When it was apparent the Fram would not float near the North Pole, Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen set out on an over-200-mile trek for the pole on skis. Running low on food, they retreated, wintered over on remote Franz Josef Land, and miraculously made it to Norway about when the Fram did. In addition, the crew made extensive scientific measurements including ice thickness and water depth. There in the Fram Museum are the very instruments the crew used as well as their guns, skis and clothes (Nansen preferred wool to fur because it dried faster during heavy exertion).

The feat has been repeated several times, most recently in 2006 by a French team on the Tara during the International Polar Year. Unlike those on the Fram, they had the benefit of modern communications and other perks like corporate sponsorship: "Rolex" is painted prominently on much of their gear. Whereas it took the Fram 34 months to flow through the Arctic ice, it took the Tara only 14 months, less than half the time. The reason is that there is less ice and it is thinner and more broken up. Recent sea ice thickness measurements indicate new ice that now constitutes 68 percent of the Arctic is 1 to 3 feet thick compared to the typically 12-foot-thick old ice Nansen's crew measured.

If that isn't evidence enough, the recently declassified CIA photos provided on the Web by NOAA clearly show the dramatic change in ice cover. Most Arctic ice images are from microwaves depicted in unworldly yellows and reds. But the declassified images are spy satellite photographs at an incredible 1-meter resolution. What once was ice is now slushy water or no ice at all.

There is no question the Arctic ice is melting and a part of the warming is due to human-caused production of greenhouse gases. It is also true that the rate of Arctic ice melt, the associated rise of sea level and melting of permafrost (which will produce more CO2 in one year than all the cars on the road) is happening at a much faster rate than previously thought.

The environmental impacts are well documented, but of equal concern are the geopolitical reconfigurations and global trade issues brought about by potentially ice-free Arctic Ocean margins. While U.S. international policy is absorbed by the Middle East, many private and national interests are making plans for the Arctic. For example, the German Beluga Group has built a cargo ship with ice-breaking capabilities to sail from the North Pacific to Europe; the initial voyage is under way as we speak. If successful, summer and potentially winter shipping lanes will pass by Alaska.

That puts Alaska in the contradictory position of minimizing the environmental impacts of human-caused global climate change, while potentially utilizing an open Arctic to market products such as ammonia fertilizer, liquefied natural gas or frozen wild salmon in Europe -- to rejuvenate our value-added industries and wean us from reliance on exporting raw resources.

Alan Boraas is an anthropology professor at Kenai Peninsula College.