Warmer Arctic Brings Opportunities and Risk, Experts Say
By Charlene Porter
Staff Writer
Washington - Warmer temperatures causing global climate change are recorded
month after month, but the greatest evidence of environmental change appears in
the Arctic. Increased summer melt of the Arctic Ocean is opening new navigable
sea lanes, creating both new opportunities and new risks for the nations with
interests in the northernmost ocean.
"We sort of think of this as a new ocean opening up for the first time in
500 years," said U.S. Naval Rear Admiral David Titley, speaking on a discussion
panel at a science conference sponsored by the American Geophysical Union in
Washington May 1.
"A massive transformation," University of Calgary professor Rob Huebert
described the changes in store for the Arctic's increasing summer ice melt.
"We're seeing a transformation on the physical side the likes of which as a
human species we haven't seen before." Huebert is a coauthor of the newly
released report Climate Change & International Security: The Arctic as a
Bellwether, prepared for the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
Titley agreed with Huebert's prediction of transformation as a result of
new open waters at the top of the world. "Water where there used to be ice, that
changes shipping. It changes how Russia probably thinks about their northern
flank. It changes resource extraction, so it really is quite a different world,"
Titley said.
A variety of industries will see opportunities to make greater use of
Arctic resources, panel members agreed, including oil and gas extraction,
tourism, shipping and fishing. This development will have inevitable impacts on
the 4 million people who inhabit the Arctic region and the eight nations
considered Arctic States: Canada; the United States; Greenland, a self-governing
country in the Kingdom of Denmark; Norway; Finland; Iceland; Russia and Sweden.
These eight are members of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum
created by mutual agreement in 1996 as a means for promoting cooperation,
coordination and interaction among the members.
Some estimates calculate that 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil is
in the Arctic, and 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas. As Arctic
opportunities grow for profit and exploration, so grows the potential for
disagreement and conflict as nations and the interests they represent compete
for claims. Nations bordering on the Caribbean Sea share the waters agreeably,
Titley pointed out, demonstrating cooperation around a shared resource is
possible.
With opportunity for greater profit comes risk. The Arctic is a hostile
operating climate with limited mapping and an array of dangers including harsh
temperatures and inexact techniques for forecasting ice strength and movement of
sea ice. More economic activity will invariably mean that more people will be at
risk to these uncertainties.
With cruise ship operators already making more trips into the Arctic sea
lanes that have opened in the last several seasons, Titley warned that a
"Titanic-like disaster" is going to happen at some point in polar waters.
Cruise ship operators attract customers wanting to see icebergs and Arctic
animals up close, sailing into uncharted waters to do so, despite the potential
for hazards just below the surface. Several cruise ships have already run into
trouble in Arctic and Antarctic waters, with survivors rescued only because
other ships with the capacity to rescue happened to be nearby. Admiral Titley
said as cruise liners increase their sailings into these waters, another
stricken vessel won't be so lucky.
"Hope is not a great strategy when you are dealing with search and rescue,"
said Titley, and "at some point, someday, [a disaster] is going to
happen."
The U.S. Coast Guard has limited capacity for search and rescue in the
Arctic and Antarctica. Huebert also said the International Maritime Organization
has not set higher standards for enclosing lifeboats on ships cruising cold
waters, even though the proposal to do so was first raised after the deaths of
more than 1,500 people when the Titanic collided with an iceberg 100 years
ago.
(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs,
U.S. Department of State.)
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