Russian ships are transporting a record amount of natural gas through the melting Northeast Passage. REUTERS/OLESYA ASTAKHOVA

By Tim McDonnell • November 9, 2020

The Northeast Passage is a sea route that squeezes between Russia and the North Pole, down past Alaska, and on to China. For most of the year, it’s socked in with treacherous ice, forcing traders who wish to move goods from northern Europe to Asia to pass through the Suez Canal and around India, adding about two weeks and 2,400 nautical miles to the journey.

Thanks to climate change, though, traffic along the route is heating up—especially traffic in a product that could itself accelerate Arctic ice melt.

The Arctic is the fastest-warming place on Earth. Between the 1980s and 2010s, days when sea ice covered less than half of the Northeast Passage rose from 84 per year on average, to nearly 150, making the route more viable for ship traffic. A Chinese vessel made the first non-stop voyage through the passage in 2015. Since then, vessels have made thousands of trips, including a record of 2,700 journeys in 2019.

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