The Journal’s Tom Wright reports:

The Arctic has become an island for the first time in modern human history, showing the extent of global warming’s impact on the North Pole’s ice cap, scientists say.

Images from NASA satellites, stitched together by scientists at the University of Bremen, show that both the Northwest Passage around Canada and Northeast Passage around Russia are simultaneously free of ice for the first time in at least 125,000 years, making it theoretically possible to circumnavigate the North Pole in a ship.

Since 2005, higher summer temperatures, leading to a greater retreat of the ice cap, have opened one or another of the passages, but never at the same time. Last weekend, the Northwest Passage – first navigated by Roald Amundsen in 1903 – opened up, according to the University of Bremen data. The Northeast Passage became free of ice just a few days ago.

The melting of the Arctic ice caps - which reach their peak in March and begin retreating thereafter - is a potential boon for European and U.S. shipping companies looking to cut their journey times. A trip from Germany to Japan, for instance, can be cut in half using the Northeast Passage rather than going via the Suez Canal.

The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado said last week that the Arctic ice levels could, in coming weeks, shrink below the previous record low set last year. They have already fallen below 2005 levels, previously the second-lowest level recorded since the advent of satellite technology.

Some scientists believe the Arctic will be completely free of ice during the summer within a generation due to global warming. The consequences are enormous: the Arctic ice cap reflects the sun’s rays, keeping the polar regions cool and moderating global temperatures.

As quickly as Hurricane Gustav’s ominous approach last week sent oil prices up, the storm’s weaker-than-feared punch has pulled them back down. Man’s slowing oil demand, not nature’s potential wallop to oil supply, is once again the market’s main concern.

Assessments of Gustav’s damage are still underway, and damage to U.S. oil infrastructure along the Gulf Coast could prove worse than now thought. At this point, though, it appears the storm didn’t decimate the Gulf coast’s network of rigs, refineries and pipelines nearly as badly as initially feared. This morning, Gustav, still dumping rain on Louisiana, was downgraded to a tropical depression.

Back, then, to, business. The run-up in oil prices in recent months has curbed the growth in oil consumption. The new conventional wisdom is that demand will be comparatively slack for a long time to come. The auto industry is reaching this conclusion the hard way — through lackluster sales of pickup trucks and SUVs. That investors have so quickly shrugged off what was, after all, still a potentially large supply disruption and reverted to their bearishness about demand shows how much the psyche of Wall Street – and of Main Street — has changed.

Oil was trading this morning in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange in Singapore around $106 a barrel, some $10 below its close on Friday.

From the AP:

“The market continues to be weighed down by worries of a global economic downturn and slowing oil demand in developing markets,” said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consultancy Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. “Action by OPEC and supply-side concerns should put a backstop to any sharp price drop.”

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is scheduled to meet Sept. 9 and has indicated it may take action to defend the $100 a barrel level.

Politicians are talking a lot this campaign season about grand plans to wean Americans off their “addiction to oil.” And the lull in demand growth so far is relatively small — hardly enough to change the country’s reliance on oil-rich powers or its shock at every up tick in price at the pump. Yet when the talk returns to OPEC imposing what amounts to an oil-price floor, you wonder what the storm roiling the oil market really is. A hurricane? Or a gathering wave of more-miserly oil use by consumers?