MUENCHHAUSEN
AN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ENVIRONMENT,
RENEWABLE RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY,
AND RELATED TOPICS
By BOOTSTRAP PRESS, INC.
BETHESDA, MD
mailto:JJGREENBARON@CS.COM
=================================================================
DECEMBER 4, 2003
=================================================================
WELCOME!
The Green Baron welcomes one and all who take the time to read Muenchhausen. He aims to “tell it like it is” as much as possible, and avoid advocacy and ideological positions. There are enough of those to go around in other publications.
DEDICATION
This issue of Muenchhausen is dedicated to the scientists and their supporters who study the rigorous climate of the polar regions of Earth. It also is consecrated to the memory of brave explorers, too numerous to list here, that pioneered man’s gaining of scientific knowledge about the polar regions and braved unforgiving conditions!
Last but not least, this issue is dedicated to the memory of the great Arctic explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen. Readers are encouraged to run a search on the Internet to get material about Nansen’s harrowing drift aboard the Fram, which was encased in ice from 1893 to 1896, so that Nansen could learn about the dynamics of Arctic sea ice (imagine spending three winters in the Arctic Ocean in polar night and not seeing the sun rise for two months!). During and after World War I and the Communist revolution in Russia, Nansen tried to do his best to alleviate human suffering and care for displaced persons, and developed the “Nansen Passport”, which provided credible identification for stateless persons. Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.
MAJOR CHANGES IN SEA ICE COMING?
How time flies! The Green Baron cannot believe that one year and ten months have passed since he attended a meeting about possible major changes in Arctic sea ice that may be forthcoming! Nevertheless, although the meeting took place on Feb. 21, 2002, not much has occurred to change the information obtained at that time.
A note for those not familiar with ice in the oceans: There are three types of ice. These are sea ice, land ice, and river ice. River ice plays such a small role in the large-scale effects of oceanic ice that it will not be discussed further. Icebergs are not sea ice; they are land ice. They calve off ice caps on land masses, particularly Greenland in the Northern Hemisphere and Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere. Some icebergs, particularly those from Antarctica, can be of huge size; lengths as great as 240 kilometers (km) and widths of 80 km are not unknown. For our purposes, we are concerned not with such ice, but with sea ice, which forms directly from the freezing of sea water, particularly that formed in the Arctic Ocean.
Will there be major changes in Arctic sea ice such that it may actually disappear partially or totally during the brief polar summer? The jury is still out on that, but at the meeting the Green Baron attended in Feb. 2002; lively discussion on that topic took place. That meeting was organized by the Washington Section of the Marine Technology Society (MTS, Columbia, MD), and was held in Arlington, VA. The Green Baron has been a member of MTS since its inception in September 1962.
THE NATIONAL ICE CENTER
The National Ice Center is a joint arm of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and is located in Suitland, MD. At the time of the meeting, it was directed by Navy Commander (CDR) Steven W. Warren. The center is concerned with ice data, study, and forecasting in the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, the Sea of Okhotsk (Russia), the Sea of Japan, the oceans in general, and, yes, even the Chesapeake Bay. CDR Warren told the meeting that as of early 2002, the center was processing 9 gigabytes (GB) of data per day concerning ice.
The center obtains ice data from buoys and from ice reconnaissance. The center works with counterparts in countries such as Canada, Denmark, and Norway (Denmark being particularly concerned with Greenland, where it has interests).
THE NORTHEAST AND NORTHWEST PASSAGES
Before we consider the implications of a reduced-ice or ice-free Arctic Ocean, it might be useful to define the Northeast (sometimes called (North) Passage and the Northwest Passage. The Northeast Passage comprises the Arctic Ocean’s waters eastward from the top of the Atlantic Ocean off the North Cape of Norway, along the coast and through the islands of Siberia, and on to the Bering Strait, through which one sails into the Pacific Ocean. The Northwest Passage, going eastward, begins at the Bering Strait, is composed of the waters off northern Alaska and Canada, and wends its way past Canada’s Northwest Territories and through the Canadian Archipelago (in the newly created province of Nunavut), to the Baffin Bay, from where one can sail southward to the Atlantic Ocean. Before global warming, if indeed it is occurring, began to manifest itself, these passages were normally choked with sea ice, even in summer, and navigating those waters, even with an icebreaker, could be a “sometime thing.”
From the early 17th century into the 20th century, intrepid—some would say rash—explorers tried to find the two passages. During the 17th century, Henry Hudson, who established the colony of Nieuw Amsterdam (now New York), came to grief in his attempt, aboard the Half Moon, to locate and navigate the Northwest Passage. He never made it back to Holland. Other explorers tried the same thing and often were not seen again. Sometimes their remains were found decades later.
The Northeast Passage over Siberia presented similar challenges. As a child, the Green Baron was read a story about the Russian ship Chiluskin, which attempted to sail eastward from the Norwegian Sea to the Bering Strait over the top of Siberia. En route, the Chiluskin met the Krasin, which was sailing westward. The captain of the Krasin urged the captain of the Chiluskin to turn back before it was too late, for summer was approaching an end. The Chiluskin, however, proceeded, and ended up held fast in the newly formed autumn ice, and was broken by the ice, with the loss of all hands.
Even as recently as the mid-20th century, sailing into the Northwest Passage, for example, could be “iffy”. For example, if a ship sailed north of Alaska and Canada and then was to turn around and head back for the Bering Strait, it could encounter an unpleasant surprise. The sea ice could be fast against the shore at Point Barrow, Alaska, and be so thick that an icebreaker couldn’t cut a way through. That meant that ship and crew would have to winter over in the Arctic and hope for passage the next late June or early July, assuming the ice north of Barrow opened a lead.
To complicate matters, no one was sure just how a Northwest Passage could be negotiated, even if waters were navigable all the way through. During the summer of 1957, however, the Northwest Passage was negotiated successfully by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutters Storis, Bramble, and Spar. After several disappointing tries through various apparent channels that proved to be shoaled or blocked, the men aboard found a narrow passage through Bellot Strait, broke the ice there, and thus made it through from Seattle, Washington to Argentia, Newfoundland, and thence to Boston. The Green Baron had the honor of working at the then-U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office (now Oceanographic Office) with those men, and, in fact, met them when their ships docked at Argentia. The Green Baron, at the time, was aboard the USS Prevail (AGS-20), on survey duty along the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts.
But why were the Northeast and Northwest Passages so vigorously sought? Well, before the existence of the Suez and Panama Canals, ships going from ocean to ocean had to sail around the Cape of Good Hope (Atlantic to Indian) or Cape Horn (Atlantic to Pacific). The voyage around Cape Horn, especially, is very rough, because a ship often needs to negotiate string west winds and, sometimes, fully-arisen seas under 50-knot winds. A ship can get some relief if it heads from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Strait of Magellan, but even then, navigation must be expert, because there are many side inlets in which a ship can get lost. To go westward through Magellan, a ship would have to battle against swift west-east currents, and sometimes that is infeasible. In addition to the hazards, the sailing distances around Good Hope and “the Horn” are reckoned in many weeks and thousands of nautical miles, with commensurate costs.
If it had been feasible, in those days, to negotiate the Arctic Passages, much saving in mileage, time, and money could have been realized. The unpredictability of Arctic ice patterns and leads in the ice, conspired to make use of the Arctic Passages essentially impossible.
IMPLICATIONS OF AN ICE-FREE ARCTIC
If, as the Green Baron heard at the February 2002 meeting, the Arctic sea ice pack becomes more reduced in size, what implications might there be? They could be navigational, economic, and environmental, in a last-but-not-least order.
Navigational. First of all, navigation patterns could change. The Arctic Passages long sought by explorers of the past would be open for at least a small portion of the summer. Ships could pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and vice versa, with much-decreased risk of being damaged by, or encased in ice. Navigational access to the Arctic Ocean and its seas and regions would increase materially.
CDR Warren and other speakers at the meeting described long-term studies that indicate that the Arctic summer sea-ice pack has been decreasing in size by about 3.5% per decade since about 1956. These data should be taken with a grain of salt, however, because for much of that time, aerial and remote-sensing surveys of the Arctic Ocean were sparse. Nevertheless, on the basis of data currently available, it is postulated that the Northeast Passage could have fully navigable leads by the summer of 2006, for as long as two months of the year. The Northwest Passage might have similar leads regularly open perhaps 5—10 years thereafter.
Projections for years further in the future vary. One prediction by Ola Johannesen of the Nansen Center for Environment and Remote Sensing (NCERS, Bergen, Norway, www.ncers.no) calls for an essentially ice-free summer Arctic Ocean by 2050. Other predictions are not as sanguine, but experts do agree that each summer, the Arctic ice pack is shrinking. One example portending such change: At Point Barrow, Alaska, summer snowmelt did not begin until June. Now it is observed in May. Moreover, if global warming is indeed occurring, warming in the Arctic is expected to be faster than warming in the Temperate Zone.
Increased navigability of the Arctic Passages does not mean smooth sailing. With few exceptions, there are no good ports or other logistical facilities to serve ships in the north polar regions (possible exceptions being ports in northern Norway, and Murmansk, Arkhangel’sk, and Kandalaksha in Russia, and the latter two are iced in for much of the year). Meteorological data are spotty and weather can be highly unpredictable. The ice pack itself can be regarded as a “moving coastline” with no fixed reference point. Depictions of ice are often very inaccurate.
Add to these problems the lack of meteorological, oceanographic, and communication instrumentation that is built to withstand the rigors of the Arctic environment. For that reason, it is very difficult to take reliable environmental measurements and readings. Moreover, because the Arctic regions are not far from the magnetic pole and magnetic storms (aurorae) frequently occur, communications can be strongly disrupted. New techniques need to be developed to measure, map, model, monitor, and predict conditions in the Arctic.
Another navigational problem is search and rescue (SAR) in the event of an accident or shipwreck. The nearest fully equipped SAR facility is the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Kodiak, Alaska, about 1,000 miles from the nearest Arctic point!
Economic. Economic implications of reduced summer ice in the Arctic Passages could be significant. Imagine, for example, that a supertanker sailing from the Middle East—too large for the Suez and Panama Canals—need not sail around the Cape of Good Hope or “the Horn”, but could, rather, go through one of the Arctic Passages to transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, or vice versa. This could shorten sailing distances by as much as 10,000 nautical miles and sometimes even more, with tremendous commensurate savings in costs. In addition, an open summer Arctic could provide economic incentive to construct port facilities, navigational aids, and many of the other appurtenances for safer shipping. Not only oil supertankers would use the Passages. Many types of shipping would go through, even ships that could transit the canals. Canal tolls are expensive, so some money would be saved there, too.
One example: Russia is said to have plans to develop possible oil reserves under the Laptev Sea (approximately the middle of the Siberian coastline). The crude oil would be loaded onto small tankers for shipment to Murmansk, where it would be transferred to large tankers for transoceanic shipment. Adverse effects on the Siberian coastal environment likely would be unavoidable. The only factor that seems to have delayed this activity is that Russia currently lacks the finances to go forward with such a project.
Moreover, some of the oil deposits in and around northern Alaska would become more economical to extract and ship. There likely would be heavy pressure to overcome resistance to open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration and drilling for oil. It also is possible that additional exploration for oil reserves would take place along the adjacent Canadian coast and along the coast of Siberia. Note that Siberia has a large continental shelf, which could conceivably contain commercial oil deposits. There also could be exploration for, and extraction of natural resources other than petroleum. Which brings us to …
Environmental. The North Frigid or Arctic Zone is home to a very fragile ecology. Despite safety precautions encompassing the latest “clean” technology, pollution incidents are almost sure to occur, given sharply increased port and related structure development, ship passage, and urbanization. They would be much harder to clean up than would similar incidents in the Temperate or Torrid Zones because of the much lower average temperatures encountered. Under colder conditions, natural and manmade biological and chemical processes, including those needed for pollution abatement, would proceed at a much slower pace than that observed in warmer regions. Pollutants would be much more persistent and could wreak much havoc on already fragile ecosystems.
Speakers at the February 2002 meeting also brought up the specter of a military or terrorist attack on Arctic oil, port, and logistical facilities. Bringing in necessary personnel, equipment, and systems to perform countermeasures could be a daunting task, and the environmental consequences, even with rapid response—highly difficult, at best—would be horrific.
ECONOMICAL TEMPTATION
Being, by nature, a cheerful pessimist, the Green Baron reluctantly thinks that the perceived economic benefits to be gained from an opening of the Arctic Passages—or perhaps nearly the whole Arctic Ocean some time between 2050 and 2080, if indeed that occurs—will generally outweigh many environmental cautions if and when plans are made to take advantage of these new navigational and perhaps commercial possibilities. He hopes that such planning is well thought out and does fully account for the highly fragile nature of the Arctic marine and land ecosystems. There keeps nagging at the back of his mind, however, what one land developer in an unnamed country was heard to say about three years ago: “Let future generations deal with their own problems. I want to make my money now.”
In future issues of Muenchhausen, the Green Baron will return to the topic of polar ice and related subjects. To all readers, Season’s Greetings and a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year 2004!
WHAT IS BOOTSTRAP PRESS?
Bootstrap Press is a nonprofit organization founded in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.A., to promote the development and management of technology and businesses based on renewable resources. We also encourage the preservation of our Earth's natural habitats and its plant and animal species. So do a lot of other organizations, and more power to them for doing so!
Bootstrap Press is different because its members believe that the development of renewable resources and the preservation of habitats and species are receiving far more lip service than the financial and technical support needed to achieve these goals. We also think they will continue to be subjects of more talk than action until someone can show how renewable resources and the diversity of biological species can be the basis for potentially profitable businesses as well as a matter of ethics. Bootstrap Press intends to provide a forum for the discussion of how to build up such business, and of related topics.
There's one more thing we should mention about Muenchhausen and Bootstrap Press. We try to present only the scientific and technical facts that are correct to the best of our knowledge, belief, and good faith. It is up to Muenchhausen's readers to draw their own conclusions and make their own judgments.
NOTE: The mention of a product or service in MUENCHHAUSEN is in no way to be regarded as an endorsement of that product or service by MUENCHHAUSEN, Bootstrap Press, The Green Baron, or any other contributor to MUENCHHAUSEN.
AN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ENVIRONMENT,
RENEWABLE RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY,
AND RELATED TOPICS
By BOOTSTRAP PRESS, INC.
BETHESDA, MD
mailto:JJGREENBARON@CS.COM
=================================================================
DECEMBER 4, 2003
=================================================================
WELCOME!
The Green Baron welcomes one and all who take the time to read Muenchhausen. He aims to “tell it like it is” as much as possible, and avoid advocacy and ideological positions. There are enough of those to go around in other publications.
DEDICATION
This issue of Muenchhausen is dedicated to the scientists and their supporters who study the rigorous climate of the polar regions of Earth. It also is consecrated to the memory of brave explorers, too numerous to list here, that pioneered man’s gaining of scientific knowledge about the polar regions and braved unforgiving conditions!
Last but not least, this issue is dedicated to the memory of the great Arctic explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen. Readers are encouraged to run a search on the Internet to get material about Nansen’s harrowing drift aboard the Fram, which was encased in ice from 1893 to 1896, so that Nansen could learn about the dynamics of Arctic sea ice (imagine spending three winters in the Arctic Ocean in polar night and not seeing the sun rise for two months!). During and after World War I and the Communist revolution in Russia, Nansen tried to do his best to alleviate human suffering and care for displaced persons, and developed the “Nansen Passport”, which provided credible identification for stateless persons. Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.
MAJOR CHANGES IN SEA ICE COMING?
How time flies! The Green Baron cannot believe that one year and ten months have passed since he attended a meeting about possible major changes in Arctic sea ice that may be forthcoming! Nevertheless, although the meeting took place on Feb. 21, 2002, not much has occurred to change the information obtained at that time.
A note for those not familiar with ice in the oceans: There are three types of ice. These are sea ice, land ice, and river ice. River ice plays such a small role in the large-scale effects of oceanic ice that it will not be discussed further. Icebergs are not sea ice; they are land ice. They calve off ice caps on land masses, particularly Greenland in the Northern Hemisphere and Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere. Some icebergs, particularly those from Antarctica, can be of huge size; lengths as great as 240 kilometers (km) and widths of 80 km are not unknown. For our purposes, we are concerned not with such ice, but with sea ice, which forms directly from the freezing of sea water, particularly that formed in the Arctic Ocean.
Will there be major changes in Arctic sea ice such that it may actually disappear partially or totally during the brief polar summer? The jury is still out on that, but at the meeting the Green Baron attended in Feb. 2002; lively discussion on that topic took place. That meeting was organized by the Washington Section of the Marine Technology Society (MTS, Columbia, MD), and was held in Arlington, VA. The Green Baron has been a member of MTS since its inception in September 1962.
THE NATIONAL ICE CENTER
The National Ice Center is a joint arm of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and is located in Suitland, MD. At the time of the meeting, it was directed by Navy Commander (CDR) Steven W. Warren. The center is concerned with ice data, study, and forecasting in the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, the Sea of Okhotsk (Russia), the Sea of Japan, the oceans in general, and, yes, even the Chesapeake Bay. CDR Warren told the meeting that as of early 2002, the center was processing 9 gigabytes (GB) of data per day concerning ice.
The center obtains ice data from buoys and from ice reconnaissance. The center works with counterparts in countries such as Canada, Denmark, and Norway (Denmark being particularly concerned with Greenland, where it has interests).
THE NORTHEAST AND NORTHWEST PASSAGES
Before we consider the implications of a reduced-ice or ice-free Arctic Ocean, it might be useful to define the Northeast (sometimes called (North) Passage and the Northwest Passage. The Northeast Passage comprises the Arctic Ocean’s waters eastward from the top of the Atlantic Ocean off the North Cape of Norway, along the coast and through the islands of Siberia, and on to the Bering Strait, through which one sails into the Pacific Ocean. The Northwest Passage, going eastward, begins at the Bering Strait, is composed of the waters off northern Alaska and Canada, and wends its way past Canada’s Northwest Territories and through the Canadian Archipelago (in the newly created province of Nunavut), to the Baffin Bay, from where one can sail southward to the Atlantic Ocean. Before global warming, if indeed it is occurring, began to manifest itself, these passages were normally choked with sea ice, even in summer, and navigating those waters, even with an icebreaker, could be a “sometime thing.”
From the early 17th century into the 20th century, intrepid—some would say rash—explorers tried to find the two passages. During the 17th century, Henry Hudson, who established the colony of Nieuw Amsterdam (now New York), came to grief in his attempt, aboard the Half Moon, to locate and navigate the Northwest Passage. He never made it back to Holland. Other explorers tried the same thing and often were not seen again. Sometimes their remains were found decades later.
The Northeast Passage over Siberia presented similar challenges. As a child, the Green Baron was read a story about the Russian ship Chiluskin, which attempted to sail eastward from the Norwegian Sea to the Bering Strait over the top of Siberia. En route, the Chiluskin met the Krasin, which was sailing westward. The captain of the Krasin urged the captain of the Chiluskin to turn back before it was too late, for summer was approaching an end. The Chiluskin, however, proceeded, and ended up held fast in the newly formed autumn ice, and was broken by the ice, with the loss of all hands.
Even as recently as the mid-20th century, sailing into the Northwest Passage, for example, could be “iffy”. For example, if a ship sailed north of Alaska and Canada and then was to turn around and head back for the Bering Strait, it could encounter an unpleasant surprise. The sea ice could be fast against the shore at Point Barrow, Alaska, and be so thick that an icebreaker couldn’t cut a way through. That meant that ship and crew would have to winter over in the Arctic and hope for passage the next late June or early July, assuming the ice north of Barrow opened a lead.
To complicate matters, no one was sure just how a Northwest Passage could be negotiated, even if waters were navigable all the way through. During the summer of 1957, however, the Northwest Passage was negotiated successfully by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutters Storis, Bramble, and Spar. After several disappointing tries through various apparent channels that proved to be shoaled or blocked, the men aboard found a narrow passage through Bellot Strait, broke the ice there, and thus made it through from Seattle, Washington to Argentia, Newfoundland, and thence to Boston. The Green Baron had the honor of working at the then-U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office (now Oceanographic Office) with those men, and, in fact, met them when their ships docked at Argentia. The Green Baron, at the time, was aboard the USS Prevail (AGS-20), on survey duty along the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts.
But why were the Northeast and Northwest Passages so vigorously sought? Well, before the existence of the Suez and Panama Canals, ships going from ocean to ocean had to sail around the Cape of Good Hope (Atlantic to Indian) or Cape Horn (Atlantic to Pacific). The voyage around Cape Horn, especially, is very rough, because a ship often needs to negotiate string west winds and, sometimes, fully-arisen seas under 50-knot winds. A ship can get some relief if it heads from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Strait of Magellan, but even then, navigation must be expert, because there are many side inlets in which a ship can get lost. To go westward through Magellan, a ship would have to battle against swift west-east currents, and sometimes that is infeasible. In addition to the hazards, the sailing distances around Good Hope and “the Horn” are reckoned in many weeks and thousands of nautical miles, with commensurate costs.
If it had been feasible, in those days, to negotiate the Arctic Passages, much saving in mileage, time, and money could have been realized. The unpredictability of Arctic ice patterns and leads in the ice, conspired to make use of the Arctic Passages essentially impossible.
IMPLICATIONS OF AN ICE-FREE ARCTIC
If, as the Green Baron heard at the February 2002 meeting, the Arctic sea ice pack becomes more reduced in size, what implications might there be? They could be navigational, economic, and environmental, in a last-but-not-least order.
Navigational. First of all, navigation patterns could change. The Arctic Passages long sought by explorers of the past would be open for at least a small portion of the summer. Ships could pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and vice versa, with much-decreased risk of being damaged by, or encased in ice. Navigational access to the Arctic Ocean and its seas and regions would increase materially.
CDR Warren and other speakers at the meeting described long-term studies that indicate that the Arctic summer sea-ice pack has been decreasing in size by about 3.5% per decade since about 1956. These data should be taken with a grain of salt, however, because for much of that time, aerial and remote-sensing surveys of the Arctic Ocean were sparse. Nevertheless, on the basis of data currently available, it is postulated that the Northeast Passage could have fully navigable leads by the summer of 2006, for as long as two months of the year. The Northwest Passage might have similar leads regularly open perhaps 5—10 years thereafter.
Projections for years further in the future vary. One prediction by Ola Johannesen of the Nansen Center for Environment and Remote Sensing (NCERS, Bergen, Norway, www.ncers.no) calls for an essentially ice-free summer Arctic Ocean by 2050. Other predictions are not as sanguine, but experts do agree that each summer, the Arctic ice pack is shrinking. One example portending such change: At Point Barrow, Alaska, summer snowmelt did not begin until June. Now it is observed in May. Moreover, if global warming is indeed occurring, warming in the Arctic is expected to be faster than warming in the Temperate Zone.
Increased navigability of the Arctic Passages does not mean smooth sailing. With few exceptions, there are no good ports or other logistical facilities to serve ships in the north polar regions (possible exceptions being ports in northern Norway, and Murmansk, Arkhangel’sk, and Kandalaksha in Russia, and the latter two are iced in for much of the year). Meteorological data are spotty and weather can be highly unpredictable. The ice pack itself can be regarded as a “moving coastline” with no fixed reference point. Depictions of ice are often very inaccurate.
Add to these problems the lack of meteorological, oceanographic, and communication instrumentation that is built to withstand the rigors of the Arctic environment. For that reason, it is very difficult to take reliable environmental measurements and readings. Moreover, because the Arctic regions are not far from the magnetic pole and magnetic storms (aurorae) frequently occur, communications can be strongly disrupted. New techniques need to be developed to measure, map, model, monitor, and predict conditions in the Arctic.
Another navigational problem is search and rescue (SAR) in the event of an accident or shipwreck. The nearest fully equipped SAR facility is the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Kodiak, Alaska, about 1,000 miles from the nearest Arctic point!
Economic. Economic implications of reduced summer ice in the Arctic Passages could be significant. Imagine, for example, that a supertanker sailing from the Middle East—too large for the Suez and Panama Canals—need not sail around the Cape of Good Hope or “the Horn”, but could, rather, go through one of the Arctic Passages to transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, or vice versa. This could shorten sailing distances by as much as 10,000 nautical miles and sometimes even more, with tremendous commensurate savings in costs. In addition, an open summer Arctic could provide economic incentive to construct port facilities, navigational aids, and many of the other appurtenances for safer shipping. Not only oil supertankers would use the Passages. Many types of shipping would go through, even ships that could transit the canals. Canal tolls are expensive, so some money would be saved there, too.
One example: Russia is said to have plans to develop possible oil reserves under the Laptev Sea (approximately the middle of the Siberian coastline). The crude oil would be loaded onto small tankers for shipment to Murmansk, where it would be transferred to large tankers for transoceanic shipment. Adverse effects on the Siberian coastal environment likely would be unavoidable. The only factor that seems to have delayed this activity is that Russia currently lacks the finances to go forward with such a project.
Moreover, some of the oil deposits in and around northern Alaska would become more economical to extract and ship. There likely would be heavy pressure to overcome resistance to open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration and drilling for oil. It also is possible that additional exploration for oil reserves would take place along the adjacent Canadian coast and along the coast of Siberia. Note that Siberia has a large continental shelf, which could conceivably contain commercial oil deposits. There also could be exploration for, and extraction of natural resources other than petroleum. Which brings us to …
Environmental. The North Frigid or Arctic Zone is home to a very fragile ecology. Despite safety precautions encompassing the latest “clean” technology, pollution incidents are almost sure to occur, given sharply increased port and related structure development, ship passage, and urbanization. They would be much harder to clean up than would similar incidents in the Temperate or Torrid Zones because of the much lower average temperatures encountered. Under colder conditions, natural and manmade biological and chemical processes, including those needed for pollution abatement, would proceed at a much slower pace than that observed in warmer regions. Pollutants would be much more persistent and could wreak much havoc on already fragile ecosystems.
Speakers at the February 2002 meeting also brought up the specter of a military or terrorist attack on Arctic oil, port, and logistical facilities. Bringing in necessary personnel, equipment, and systems to perform countermeasures could be a daunting task, and the environmental consequences, even with rapid response—highly difficult, at best—would be horrific.
ECONOMICAL TEMPTATION
Being, by nature, a cheerful pessimist, the Green Baron reluctantly thinks that the perceived economic benefits to be gained from an opening of the Arctic Passages—or perhaps nearly the whole Arctic Ocean some time between 2050 and 2080, if indeed that occurs—will generally outweigh many environmental cautions if and when plans are made to take advantage of these new navigational and perhaps commercial possibilities. He hopes that such planning is well thought out and does fully account for the highly fragile nature of the Arctic marine and land ecosystems. There keeps nagging at the back of his mind, however, what one land developer in an unnamed country was heard to say about three years ago: “Let future generations deal with their own problems. I want to make my money now.”
In future issues of Muenchhausen, the Green Baron will return to the topic of polar ice and related subjects. To all readers, Season’s Greetings and a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year 2004!
WHAT IS BOOTSTRAP PRESS?
Bootstrap Press is a nonprofit organization founded in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.A., to promote the development and management of technology and businesses based on renewable resources. We also encourage the preservation of our Earth's natural habitats and its plant and animal species. So do a lot of other organizations, and more power to them for doing so!
Bootstrap Press is different because its members believe that the development of renewable resources and the preservation of habitats and species are receiving far more lip service than the financial and technical support needed to achieve these goals. We also think they will continue to be subjects of more talk than action until someone can show how renewable resources and the diversity of biological species can be the basis for potentially profitable businesses as well as a matter of ethics. Bootstrap Press intends to provide a forum for the discussion of how to build up such business, and of related topics.
There's one more thing we should mention about Muenchhausen and Bootstrap Press. We try to present only the scientific and technical facts that are correct to the best of our knowledge, belief, and good faith. It is up to Muenchhausen's readers to draw their own conclusions and make their own judgments.
NOTE: The mention of a product or service in MUENCHHAUSEN is in no way to be regarded as an endorsement of that product or service by MUENCHHAUSEN, Bootstrap Press, The Green Baron, or any other contributor to MUENCHHAUSEN.
Labels: National Ice Center; sea ice changes; Arctic pollution potential
posted by Green_Baron00 @ 3:55 PM
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