Who Owns the Arctic?

New warning on Arctic sea ice melt

By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News, April 7, 2011

 

Scientists who predicted a few years ago that Arctic summers could be ice-free by 2013 now say summer sea ice will probably be gone in this decade.

The original prediction, made in 2007, gained Wieslaw Maslowski's team a deal of criticism from some of their peers.

Now they are working with a new computer model - compiled partly in response to those criticisms - that produces a "best guess" date of 2016.

Arctic ozone levels in never-before-seen plunge

Richard Black, BBC News, April 5, 2011

The ozone layer has seen unprecedented damage in the Arctic this winter due to cold weather in the upper atmosphere.

By the end of March, 40% of the ozone in the stratosphere had been destroyed, against a previous record of 30%.

Climate Change Poses a Major Challenge for the U.S. Navy in the Arctic

Lauren Morello & Dina Fine Maron, New York Times, March 11, 2011

Climate change will pose major new hurdles for U.S. naval forces, forcing the military to grapple with an emerging Arctic frontier, increasing demand for humanitarian aid and creating rising seas that could threaten low-lying bases, the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday.

Arctic melt to cost up to $24 trillion by 2050: report

(Reuters: Washington, DC, Feb 5, 2011) - Arctic ice melting could cost global agriculture, real estate and insurance anywhere from $2.4 trillion to $24 trillion by 2050 in damage from rising sea levels, floods and heat waves, according to a report released on Friday.

Another big-ice Arctic thaw, say experts

Randy Boswell, Postmedia News, September 9, 2010

Arctic Ocean sea ice has experienced another severe meltdown this year, with the approaching end-of-summer minimum representing the third-biggest thaw since satellite monitoring began about 30 years ago.

This year's retreat from a winter maximum of about 15 million square kilometres to a September coverage area of just five million square kilometres also means that the four greatest melts since satellite measurements began in the late 1970s have occurred in the past four years.

Arctic talks open amid protests

Judi Rever, Agence France Press, March 30, 2010

Talks on preserving the Arctic amid a race for its rich resources opened on Monday as protesters urged the meeting to focus on damage to the fragile region from climate change.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the summit in Chelsea, Canada, that "those who have legitimate interests in the region" should be heard amid anger from some countries and indigenous peoples that they had been excluded.

Climate Change, the Arctic and Russia’s National Security

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, 25 March 2010, Pravda.ru

What does Prime Minister Stephen Harper have in common with the Canadian Minister of Defence? He shares a sinister, hypocritical and belligerent discourse bordering on the lunatic fringe of the international community. Yet Canada’s new-found megalomania is the least of Russia’s worries: How can climate change in the Arctic threaten her national security?

Arctic ice melting faster than feared: study

John Bowman, CBC News, February 5, 2010

The head of the largest climate change study ever undertaken in Canada says the Arctic sea ice is thinning faster than expected.

The Canadian Coast Guard ship Amundsen remained mobile all winter during the Arctic Ocean for the Circumpolar Flaw Lead study. (Emily Chung/CBC)

"It's happening much faster than our most pessimistic projections," said University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead study. A flaw lead is the term for open water between pack ice and coastal ice.

WHO OWNS THE ARCTIC? -- interview

The New Internationalist, July 2009

Jess Worth: Why is Arctic sovereignty such a hot topic at the moment?

Michael Byers: It’s a hot topic because the earth is becoming hotter! Climate change is the principal driver of almost every development in the Arctic these days. The main nation-state players are the five countries that actually have coastline on the Arctic Ocean. So: Russia, Norway, Denmark because of Greenland; Canada and the United States because of Alaska.

These five countries have considerable landmass in the Arctic, but the most important thing is that they all front on what will become some very important shipping routes. Also, the ocean is relatively shallow and has considerable fossil fuel reserves. Because of this, the melting of the Arctic sea-ice – changing from an ice-covered ocean to an increasingly ice-free ocean – is changing things. These five countries are immediately affected and potentially have the most to gain.

Arctic expert questions Canada's northern strategy

CBC News, July 28, 2009

The federal government's new strategy for Canada's North may be a case of political posturing, at least one Arctic sovereignty expert has suggested.

The Northern Strategy, released on Sunday, promises to assert Canada's sovereignty over its resource-rich Arctic lands and waters, while addressing the need for jobs, housing and a clean environment in the region.

But Michael Byers, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia, said the strategy offered little in the way of new initiatives and announcements.