"Climate change is melting parts of the ice-locked Northwest Passage. China is building its first modern icebreaker in hopes of staking claims to Arctic waters. Frigid polar regions are opening up to increased shipping traffic, scientific exploration and tourism. Yet the United States is so short of icebreakers capable of navigating those still unpredictable waters that since 2007, it has made the annual supply run to McMurdo Station, the American research outpost in Antarctica, with a ship leased from Sweden."
"The nation's two heavy-duty U.S. icebreakers sit sidelined in Seattle, home of the Coast Guard's three-ship icebreaker fleet. The Polar Sea and its twin, the Polar Star, are 1970s-era cutters that have been patched up to keep going past their original life span.
The only working icebreaker is the 12-year-old Healy, which boasts elaborate scientific labs but can break through only thinner ice."
Kyung M. Song reports for the Seattle Times Washington Bureau October 10, 2011.
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