The Arctic in peril

9 Comments

1. 

   blueneck on October 19, 2005 at 2:21 pm

   ask, thanks for posting this.  The melting of the Arctic icecap is just one more effect of GLOBAL HEATING.

   Here is good link pertaining to the science of Arctic warming.

   • 

     ask on October 19, 2005 at 2:33 pm

     My pleasure.
     The de-iceing of the Arctic is clearly a result of global warming.  It will also accellerate climatic change:

     From The Guardian
     Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the Colorado centre, said melting sea ice accelerates warming because dark-coloured water absorbs heat from the sun that was previously reflected back into space by white ice. “Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold. We could see changes in Arctic ice happening much sooner than we thought and that is important because without the ice cover over the Arctic Ocean we have to expect big changes in Earth’s weather.”

     Regrettably, I worry that the process is passed the point of return.  Now we need to deal with the reality of the changes.

     • 

       blueneck on October 19, 2005 at 2:41 pm

       Like Jimi Hendrix’ guitar.  Except this feedback will blow the top of the planet off, not just your mind.

       Here’s another good link to some science.

     • 

       ubikkibu on October 19, 2005 at 4:33 pm

       Another wrinkle I heard this morning (I live in Boulder, where a preponderance of climate scientists combined with vehement environmentalists leads to frequent radio coverage of global warming): the volume of water itself varies with temperature.  Hot water is bigger than cold water by a measurable extent.

       The speaker claimed that rising ocean temperatures will themselves flood many coastal areas in the next few decades, without any additional help from the rapidly melting glaciers and icecaps.  He also said that the Earth’s albedo–an aggregate measure of its reflectivity–is reducing at an accelerating rate that has surprised even those scientists whose entire study is global warming.

2. 

   Oui on October 19, 2005 at 3:12 pm

   .
   Just listened to BBC World — UK Met Office.

   Britain Warned of Worst Winter in 10 Years

   Britain can expect its coldest winter for at least a decade, the Met Office has warned. Sustained icy weather threatens to kill thousands and cause travel chaos.

   

   Coupled with a shortage of gas, it could lead to power cuts for industry. Gas supplies to factories and power stations would be cut to ensure there is enough to run the nation’s central heating systems.

   Two weeks of freezing temperatures
   Chief meteorologist Ewen McCallum said: “There is the potential for long periods of up to two weeks where the temperature may not rise much above freezing.” The Met Office has told the London Resilience Forum, which lays plans for major disasters, that there is a high chance of extreme weather.

   Its warning is based on the likelihood of winds gusting in from Russia instead of the warmer Atlantic ocean.

   London Mayor Ken Livingstone warned that London and the South East could face the worst winter since 1962-1963, when Britain was frozen from Boxing Day until April with an average temperature of 0.2C (32.3F).

   Thank goodness, the Brits just saved the planet. With clear environment conscience they can continue their fight in Iraq. <sic>

   ▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY

3. 

   ATinNM on October 19, 2005 at 8:35 pm

   The easiest and sanest thing to do is apply the same protocol to the Arctic that was used for Antarctica – but don’t hold your breath.  “Sane” is not a condition diplomats hold in high regard.  (IANAD)

   • 

     ask on October 19, 2005 at 10:29 pm

     Yes, you’d think so.

     I Am Not A Diplomat?

     • 

       ATinNM on October 19, 2005 at 11:11 pm

       Yeah … IANAD = I Am Not A Diplomat.

4. 

   The Maven on October 21, 2005 at 12:36 pm

   I realize this is getting posted rather late in the game, but for posterity, Thursday’s NY Times story is one in a major continuing series they’re doing on the Arctic.  There’s a link in the first sidebar on the left to the first piece in the series, “As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound” (Times Select required, abstract freely available).  This article specifically addressed the issue of claims by various nations and relevant current and potential treaties:

   But if the Arctic is no longer a frozen backyard, the fences matter. For now it is not clear where those fences are. Under a treaty called the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, territory is determined by how far a nation’s continental shelf extends into the sea. Under the treaty, countries have limited time after ratifying it to map the sea floor and make claims.

   In 2001, Russia made the first move, staking out virtually half the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole. But after challenges by other nations, including the United States, Russia sought to bolster its claim by sending a research ship north to gather more geographical data. On Aug. 29, it reached the pole without the help of an icebreaker — the first ship ever to do so.
       —  —  —
   Who Governs What

   ”Stalin once just drew a line from Murmansk to the North Pole and then to Chukchi and said, ‘U.S.S.R. Polar Region’ — and nobody worried about it,” said Artur N. Chilingarov, an Arctic explorer and deputy speaker of Russia’s lower house of Parliament.  Now, instead of Stalin, the lines will be drawn by an international commission and the geography of the seabed itself.

   That means that the Arctic land grab could be decided in part inside a lab at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. There, at the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, scientists are studying sonar scans of the seabed from a 2002 expedition on a United States Coast Guard icebreaker in waters north of Barrow, Alaska.
       —  —  —
   [P]hysical features matter enormously to nations seeking to expand their undersea territory under a murky clause, Article 76, in the Law of the Sea. With only fragments of the Arctic ever surveyed, by icebreaker or nuclear submarine, various countries are mounting new mapping expeditions to claim the most territory they can.

   The exclusive economic zone controlled by a country generally extends 230 miles from its shores. But under Article 76, that zone can expand if a nation can convince other parties to the treaty that there is a ”natural prolongation” of its continental shelf beyond that limit.

   The shelf is the relatively shallow extension of a landmass to the point where the bottom drops into the oceanic abyss. But in many places, the drop-off is a gentle slope or is connected to long-submerged ridges that, if precisely mapped, might add thousands of square miles to a country’s exploitable seabed.

   Claims of expanded territory are being pursued the world over, but the Arctic Ocean is where experts foresee the most conflict. Only there do the boundaries of five nations — Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States — converge, the way sections of an orange meet at the stem. (The three other Arctic nations, Iceland, Sweden and Finland, do not have coasts on the ocean.)

   ”The area does get to be a bit crowded,” said Peter Croker, chairman of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, which assesses claims. It is composed of experts appointed by countries that ratified the treaty.

   Disputes over overlapping claims must be worked out by the countries involved, but the commission weighs control over areas that would otherwise remain international waters.  Countries that ratified the treaty before May 13, 1999, have until May 13, 2009, to make claims. Other countries have 10 years from their date of ratification.

   Russia adopted the treaty in 1997, and four years later laid claim to nearly half the Arctic Ocean. The commission’s technical panel rejected the claim, and now Russia hopes the recent voyage of its research ship Akademik Fyodorov to the North Pole will yield mapping data in its favor.

   In June, Denmark and Canada announced that they would conduct a joint surveying project of uncharted parts of the Arctic Ocean near their coasts. Denmark is particularly interested in proving that a 1,000-mile undersea mountain range, the Lomonosov Ridge, is linked geologically to Greenland, which is semiautonomous Danish territory. If it finds such a link, Denmark could make a case that the North Pole belongs to the Danes, Danish officials have said.

   Canada could also claim a huge area, and then face challenges from the other Arctic nations. The United States could petition for a swath of Arctic seabed larger than California, according to rough estimates by Dr. Mayer and other scientists. But while the government financed Dr. Mayer’s survey, it has not made a definitive move toward staking a claim.

   American ratification of the Law of the Sea treaty has repeatedly been blocked by a small group of Republican senators, now led by Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma. They say, among other things, that the treaty would infringe on American sovereignty.
   In a Senate hearing last year, Mr. Inhofe said, ”I’m very troubled about implications of this convention on our national security.” The deadlock has persisted even though the Bush administration in 2002 described ratification of the Law of the Sea and four other treaties as an ”urgent need.”

   Many proponents of the treaty, including the Pentagon, the American Petroleum Institute and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, say this paralysis leaves the United States on the sidelines while others carve up an ocean. ”We need to be in the game, at the table, talking about fisheries management, mineral extraction, freedom of navigation,” said Adm. James D. Watkins, a retired chief of naval operations who is chairman of the United States Commission on Ocean Policy. Mr. McCain said, ”I think what it would require really is a hard push from the president.”

   Treaty or no, territorial disputes ultimately imply questions about a country’s ability to defend its interests. Here, too, the United States has shown less urgency while Canada has acted more aggressively to ensure sovereignty over a fast-changing domain it had long neglected.

   (My apologies for the lengthy excerpt, but I realize that few people here have full access to archived articles from the NYT.  What appears to be a full version of the article was also posted at truthout.org.)

   Given the extent of the energy resources up for grabs, as well as extremely valuable fishing rights that will come into play as the arctic ice shelf retreats, some of these competing claims could become rather contentious in the years after 2009.

   The original Times article contained an excellent overlay map showing the various claims under different methods of interpretation, but the graphics are not available anymore, unfortunately.