Fabled NorthWest Passage Traps Yachts "Unexpectedly" UPDATE: August ice coverage up 60%

August 22nd to 27th.  A 60% jump in late summer ice has trapped yachts,  a couple of row boats and maybe even a cruise ship that wanted to enter the record books. At least one has been abandoned. Don't trust paper sails from the IPCC.  Without a "global warming" rescue, they won't be beating the North West Passage now.  (See map). Weather isn't climate.  Neither are wind and current which move ice boundaries dramatically and make it easy for ink-stained wretches to write alarming but bogus reports.  (Did you miss the North Pole Is Melting stories that didn't mention the reporting beacon had drifted three hundred miles south?)

The picture shows the two choke points where ice put the kibosh to the adventurers' travel plans. The linked story lists all known boats in the area, right down to rowboats and tandem kayaks. The fractions in the story are the percentage of grey-white ice cover in the Bathurst and Prince Regent passages.

Counter points;
Some boats have made it through the passage.
Russia allowed several hundred commercial vessels through their arctic this year.

I respect the adventurers, particularly if they rely on hard evidence over hope.
Hat tip to smalldeadanimals which found the link to Sail World.

Update:  Ice ice everywhere. "Residents of Resolute say 20 years have seen nothing like".

UPDATE:  Ice map showing 60% increase year over year for end of August Arctic ice.

meltdown or..

.. or cruising to the Sunny South?

What you'll find at the wattsupwiththat link about that North Pole meltdown.