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• s  free of ice and open to travel
  an ice-free channel in the river

• The Arctic Ocean, which experienced record melting last year, could be ice-free in the summer as soon as 2013, decades ahead of what the earlier models told us.
• The summer of 2007 saw record melting of Arctic sea ice, and NASA scientists now predict that the Arctic could be ice-free as soon as the summer of 2013.
• Over centuries, hundreds died in the doomed search for an ice-free Northwest Passage between Asia and Europe, many of them victims of ill-fated stabs at national and personal glory.

News & Articles

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• Ice-free Arctic may come as soon as 2054, study says
  Cruise ships and oil tankers may be sailing through ice-free waters of the Arctic as early as 2054, according to a new study that narrows to a handful of years the uncertainty of when this climate-change milestone will occur. Previous studies have pegged it to everywhere between 2015 and 2100.
  July 16, 2013 - NBC NEWS