MILANKOVITCH CYCLES overall favor N.H. cooling and an increase in snow cover over N.H high latitudes
during the N.H summers due to the fact that perihelion occurs
during the N.H. winter (highly favorable for increase summer snow cover), obliquity is 23.44 degrees which is at least neutral for an increase summer N.H. snow cover,
while eccentricity of the earth's orbit is currently at 0.0167 which is still circular enough to favor reduced
summertime solar insolation in the N.H. and thus promote more snow cover.
While this mission was initially accomplished in the
summertime, August 1958, and only through open - water polynya, the need to prove that a submarine could surface in the Arctic
during any season drove the Skate back the following March.