Ice-free

Grasslands cover around 30 percent of the earth's ice-free land and account for 70 percent of its agricultural land. But land degradation, made worse by high demands for meat and dairy products, affects around 70 percent of pastures.

Generally speaking, in the summer the ore from Kiruna is sent to Narvik, and that from Gällivare to Luleå, but, as Luleå is not ice-free (as is Narvik), all traffic in the winter must go to the latter, though this is to some extent mitigated by the fact that the output of the mines tends to be lower.

Ch’in-huang-tao had the largest glass factory in China. As the only ice-free port of north China, it developed an important transit trade by rail for Tientsin and south Manchuria, since the town is on the main rail line between Manchuria and north China.