Countries Plan Land Rush in Warming Arctic 657
Noel Bourke sent in a pointer to this story about northern nations maneuvering to claim land in the Arctic. Fossil fuels, shipping lanes, and fishing are among the economic interests at stake, in an opportunity opened up by the melting Arctic ice.
Get this straight (Score:1, Informative)
this land and surrounding waters belong to Canada
The Cooling World : Newsweek April 28, 1975 (Score:3, Informative)
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree - a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras - and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 - years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. "Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data," concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of west
Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion - WRONG. (Score:2, Informative)
Here's a little experiment:
- fill a glass with ice and put some water in it. Come back in a few hours and see if the glass has overflowed water all over the table.
It won't. It's a thing called displacement.
Melting the arctic ice pack is of little consequence to sea level. Note: melting the northern ice pack would certainly have MASSIVE ecological consequences, but raising the sea level isn't one of them.
HOWEVER
Melting the Antarctic glaciers WILL affect sea level. A lot. They're not displacing much of anything - most of it is on top of rock - and if it melts it will contribute to a rising sea level.
RS
Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I guess the retards [nasa.gov] here don't count either. I'd cite tons of other pinko-commie-we-hate-america [noaa.gov] sources, but you're an AC, and not worth the effort :)
-WS
Under the Arctic Ice (Score:3, Informative)
erm...no. If the ice were to melt away it would expose the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and northern coastal areas of Greenland, Siberia and Alaska, among other places. The corresponding rise in sea-levels might put some of the Canadian islands underwater but there would still be a considerable increase in exposed, above-sea landmass.
So, not only would there be land to use, much of it would be waterfront property. Considering the Canadian Arctic has sizable diamond deposits, the receding glaciers might expose some lucrative opportunities--I wonder how much "ice" is under all that ice...
Re:in related news (Score:2, Informative)
The settling of Greenland was done during a climactic period known as the Medieval Warm Period, and the Greenland coast was quite habitable (the interior has been frozen for quite a while, tho) at the time. Note that global temperatures still have not returned to the levels found during the MWP, and it will be some time before they do.
What did in the Greenland Vikings was the fact that when the MWP ended, the global climate went into a cold snap called the Little Ice Age, which was signifigantly colder than today. That lasted into the 1800's
Re:Already divied up? (Score:4, Informative)
Australia came to own this stake in 1961 when a treaty was signed by us and 11 other countries and since then 45 more countries have signed the agreement.
More information here [aad.gov.au] and a complete list of signitories here [aad.gov.au]
A nifty map can be found in PDF form here [aad.gov.au]
And an example of the stamps here [vendio.com]
note New Zealands crappy share... suck on that kiwi's
Re:As a Canadian..... (Score:2, Informative)
And to be On topic, Look at a map! wow! I live in Alaska! Where I can see Arctic warming and laugh about it while other people speculate what might be happening! Here is a recap of what I know, This Year!
In Barrow, Alaska. The 5 feet of costal erosion a year Is really helping the economics of a town based off of nothing. And underling the town isliquid water below the permafrost, sounds like GREAT land to build upon!
According to my family Its Raining in Nome, AK. Also the Icepak that came in late is leaving early, not to mention the storm that almost wiped out all the businesses this summer (ps, The Icepac was supposed to be in thick at that part of the year, almost a natural breakwater, but it decided to recide. but i got a day off of work for it =).Thats not a good sign in the middle of an "Alaskan" winter.
Here in fairbanks I have been enjoying 29 degree farenheit weather, and the birds I never seen this time of year are enjoying it! Also the permafrost at houses and buildings near the chena river is shifting like crazy, due to the water melting and the water table extending its reach.
Sencirly
the whitest eskimo that hates eskimo's
View from Canadia (Score:5, Informative)
And weirder, but not surprisingly, the responses here on /.
For those of us in Canada this isn't news. There's a special branch of the armed services that patrols the far north, made up primarily of natives. This is done not only to 'keep an eye on things' but to maintain sovereignty.
There's also more effort being put into patrolling the waters now. The Russians have made a play for shipping, and the US too, trying for a new NW Passage. Canada isn't enthused about this considering it'd have to handle any rescues and should there be an accident, likely in those challenging waters, the environmental consequences would be catastrophic for the region.
A bit further down the melt is having terrible effects. The famous ice highways that have been an important means of supplying northern communities and projects are experiencing unpredictable weather and dramatically changing 'ground' conditions. Routes that have been reliable for 40 years are now unusable and new ones difficult to find.
Outside of deep winter the thaw line is wreaking devastation on communities as roads and foundations heave and subside. Inexorably moving northward the land is turning into the half-frozen tundra-bog that used to be typical of further south.
Along with this change the animals and plants are struggling to keep up as seasons alter, new competitors emerge, and interdependencies fail. Rodents, owls, plants, insects, all sorts of things are showing up in places they haven't been for thousands of years and affecting what had been there. That this is alarming the cultures who've also lived there thousands of years is an understatement.
Heck, even in 'southern' Canada the warming is having a direct effect. Snow cover is less every year. This is actually kinda good news for the ski industry as the expectation is US resorts will suffer in comparison and business will move north. However along with this the hydrology of areas is changing as the spring flood are also less and less every year.
Agriculturally Canadian farmers are increasingly adopting plants they couldn't successfully raise before. Crops are going into the ground earlier and the growing season keeps getting longer. This isn't all a panacea though, for instance PEI potatoes benefit from the cold that kills soil pathogens every winter, without that blights could become a huge problem.
Climate-wise Canada is getting very concerned for what the future holds for it. Planning for large projects now regularly includes future climate considerations. Even trade is affected: Already bulk international water sales have been outlawed for fear of setting precedent.
This newish century is shaping up to be an interesting one on planet Earth. Where much of the big history of the last century was human events this one may well be that of human effects.
Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion - NOT WRONG (Score:2, Informative)
Land Area 2,166,086 sq km (839,999 sq miles)
http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/
Claimed by Denmark in 1380, Greenland is geographically considered part of the North American continent, and is the world's largest (non-continent) island, approximately 85% of it covered with ice.
by comparison, Antarctica is 13,209,000 sq km, 5,100,021 sq miles
>it's not made of floating ice, either
doesn't that make it worse? If floating ice melts, the level of the surrounding water shouldn't go up (water expands when it freezes).
OTOH, when ice that is not floating (ie glacier over land) melts, it would eventually add to the volume of water in the sea (fozen or otherwise).
Not saying that all the ice on greenland melting is going to make the sea level on the earth rise by 100 feet, but still...
Re:How Big Is The Bathtub? (Score:2, Informative)
On the other hand, your ice cap volume looks right, so, we are talking about over 2000 tsunamis worth of water (on average with the potential energy of a kilometer of altitude)
Not quite right (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not quite right (Score:2, Informative)