This news will probably get the global warming faithful all worked up:

Two German merchant ships have traversed the fabled Northeast Passage after global warming and melting ice opened a route from South Korea along Russia’s Arctic coast to Siberia.

Now the German-owned ships are poised to complete their journey through the cold waters where icebergs abound, heading for Rotterdam in the Netherlands with 3,500 tons of construction parts.

The merchant ships MV Beluga Fraternity and MV Beluga Foresight arrived this week in Yamburg, Siberia, their owner Beluga Shipping GmbH said Friday. They traveled from Ulsan, South Korea, in late July to Siberia by way of the Northeast Passage, a sea lane that, in years past, was avoided because of its heavy ice floes.

Scientists report that the Arctic Ocean ice cap has been shrinking to unprecedented levels in recent summers, because of global warming, opening up many passages that were ice-choked in earlier times.  [Associated Press]

What I find interesting is that buried at the end of the article is the fact that the Arctic has in fact been cooling the last three years but this is blamed on “local weather patterns”.  Notice that when a day is unusually hot the global warming faithful scream about how we must repent our sins because doomsday is upon us, but when a weather event happens that is contrary to the established dogma, it is a “local weather pattern”.  What I also find interesting was that the year of the first recorded crossing of the Northwest Passage in 1906, by Roald Amundsen was not mentioned.

When you think about it we should all consider some melting of the Arctic a good thing when you consider this:

He said the shipping company was planning more voyages through the area in coming months. Traditionally, shippers traveling from Asia to Europe have to go through the Gulf of Aden and through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea and, pending their destination, into the Atlantic Ocean.

A journey from South Korean to the Netherlands, for example, is about 11,000 nautical miles (12,658 miles). By going northward and using the Northeast Passage, approximately 3,000 nautical miles (3,452 miles) and 10 days can be shaved off. That means lower fuel costs.

Shorter transit times, less fuel, no fees to use canals, and best yet there is no worries about pirates in the Arctic unless some eskimoes want to start hijacking ships.  This sounds like a great win for everyone.