For millennia, a mass of sea ice in the high Arctic has changed with the seasons, casting off its outer layer in summer and expanding in winter as it spins between Russia, Canada and Alaska. Known as the Beaufort Gyre, this fluke of geography and oceanography was once a proving ground for ice to “mature” into thick sheets.
But no more. A rapidly changing climate has reshaped the region, reducing perennial sea ice. As ocean currents spin what is left of the gyre, chunks of ice now clog many of the channels separating the northern islands.
Canada’s coast guard has an expression for this confounding phenomenon: less ice means more ice.
“Most people think climate change means that you won’t need heavy icebreakers,” said Robert Huebert, an Arctic security expert at the University of Calgary. “And the experience of the coast guard is: no, you need far more icebreakers.”
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