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Finnish Icebreaker Sets New Record For Earliest Transit Through Northwest Passage

NPR
Published August 1, 2017 at 12:40 PM EDT
The Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica sails through ice floating on the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska, Sunday, July 16, 2017, while traversing the Arctic's Northwest Passage, where global warming is melting sea ice and glaciers at an historic rate, altering and opening up the Arctic as never before. (David Keyton/AP)
The Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica sails through ice floating on the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska, Sunday, July 16, 2017, while traversing the Arctic's Northwest Passage, where global warming is melting sea ice and glaciers at an historic rate, altering and opening up the Arctic as never before. (David Keyton/AP)

A Finnish icebreaker has set a new record for the earliest transit through the Arctic’s Northwest Passage. It took the MSV Nordica 24 days to travel more than 6,200 miles through the legendary route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Climate change and rising temperatures have melted much of the ice that once made the journey so formidable. Here & Now‘s Robin Young checks in with Frank Jordans (@wirereporter), part of a team of Associated Press reporters that was on board the ship.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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