Polar News
News of Polar Shipping and Research Relevance
Periodically, interesting news items will be posted here
Ex-envoy
urges U.S. to back Canada on Arctic
Jim Brown
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper's campaign for Arctic
sovereignty has received a boost from former U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci, who
appears to be renewing a personal plea to Washington to recognize Canadian
authority over the Northwest Passage.
The Americans have long insisted the passage is an international waterway, but Cellucci told CTV's Question Period on Sunday that it's time to change course with a view to bolstering continental security.
"I think, in the age of terrorism, it's in our security interests that the Northwest Passage be considered part of Canada," he said.
"That would enable the Canadian navy to intercept and board vessels in the Northwest Passage to make sure they're not trying to bring weapons of mass destruction into North America . . . . My hope is that the United States will take a second look at our long-standing position, because think it's in our security interests that this be considered part of Canada."
It's not the first time Cellucci has made the pitch. He spoke out on the subject on a trip to the North in 2004 and reiterated his views last year. But his latest effort, on the eve of a North American summit among Harper, U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, comes at a welcome time for the Canadian prime minister.
Arctic sovereignty isn't on the formal agenda for the two-day conference in Monterbello, Que. But it could come up anyway, most likely during a one-on-one sidebar session between Harper and Bush scheduled for Monday.
"It's quite possible it will be discussed," a Canadian official said Sunday on condition of anonymity. "If a former U.S. ambassador agrees with the prime minister's position, it's good news."
Cellucci shied away from saying whether he has discussed the matter directly with Bush, but said he did raise it formally with the U.S. State Department as his term in Ottawa was about to end, and he's mentioned it as well to David Wilkins, the current American ambassador to Canada.
So far, there's no sign the Bush administration has been swayed by the argument. When Harper announced, on a recent tour of the Arctic, that Canada would beef up its military presence in the region, Wilkins was unmoved.
"We respect Canada's right to open ports on this territory, to put troops where it deems necessary, and that still doesn't change our position," he said.
"We are simply saying, as is most of the world, that the Northwest Passage is a strait to be (open) to international navigation. It's not a Canada-U.S. issue, it's a Canada-versus-the-rest-of-the-world issue."
Harper has announced plans to build a new army training centre in the Far North at Resolute Bay and to outfit a deep-water port for both military and civilian use at the northern tip of Baffin Island.
His trip to the Arctic earlier this month was accompanied by the biggest military exercise in the region in years, with 600 soldiers, sailors and air crew participating.
The issue of who controls the Northwest Passage is expected to take on added significance as global warming makes navigation in the Arctic archipelago easier. Some U.S. business interests have lobbied for an unregulated trade route through the region, believing it could knock time off shipping routes to and from the Far East.
Toronto Star 19 Aug 2007
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/247829
Arctic ice cover is smallest ever recorded, studies find
Ships like the coast guard vessel Sir Wilfrid Laurier are part of the Canadian presence in the Arctic. Shipping routes in the region could open as the ice cover retreats.
Scientific institutes in the U.S. and Japan confirmed yesterday that the Arctic Ocean ice cover has shrunk to the smallest size ever recorded, prompting a startling prediction from one expert that the world could witness a total summer melt within 25 years.
The latest findings support an alarm issued last week by another climate expert at the University of Illinois that all-time records for maximum meltage of the polar ice cap will be “annihilated” by the time Arctic temperatures start turning colder in mid-September.
“Everyone is seeing the same thing,” Mark Serreze, a senior researcher with the Boulder, Colo.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, told CanWest News Service yesterday.
“The sea ice seems to be on this death spiral,” he said. “And this is not some nebulous thing like global temperature rises. You can see this with your own eyes.”
Two state-run Japanese research agencies released data yesterday that echoed the U.S. studies, according to Asian news reports.
The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — expressing “fear that global warming will accelerate” as a result of the rapid melting — pegged the current size of the Arctic ice cover at 5.31 million square kilometres, just less than the historic low measured on Sept. 22, 2005.
But what worries researchers most is that there’s still a month of melting left to go this summer.
“The absolute minimum is typically the first or second week of September,” said Serreze, “but we’ve already set a record. That is amazing. That is just an eye-opener. We appear to be on the fast track of change.”
The disappearance of Arctic sea ice is widely viewed not only as a key early indicator that climate change is well under way but also as a portent of rapidly escalating global warming.
Reduced ice cover, and thus a darkened polar region, means the planet will absorb even more of the sun’s energy and trigger higher temperatures, scientists believe.
“If you had talked to me a few years ago, I would have said total melting of Arctic ice might be possible by 2070 or 2100,” said Serreze.
Noting
that the rate of shrinkage has surpassed all climate models, he predicts that a
complete summer melt could occur as early as 2030.
“For many of us, we might be looking at this within our lifetimes.”
The Japanese agencies made similar forecasts, noting that the ice cover this year could shrink to 4.5 million square kilometres — a low that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change didn’t expect to be reached until 2050.
The record shrinkage of the ice cap comes amid heightened international interest in polar territorial claims and possible exploitation of Arctic oil and gas — believed to amount to 25 per cent of the world’s total untapped reserves.
Much of the interest has been spurred by the predicted opening of Arctic shipping routes as the ice cover continues its retreat.
A recent
Russian expedition to drop the country’s flag at the North Pole seabed clearly
signalled the intensifying competition among polar nations — including Canada,
Denmark, Norway and the U.S. — for potential Arctic riches.
Victoria Times Colonist 18 August 2007
By Jeff Rudd
Beluga whales will be tagged with sophisticated satellite tracking devices capable of not only charting their movements but also collecting data on water temperature and salinity as part of a massive research mission to Canada's Arctic.
The whale tracking study is one of six projects, totalling nearly $13.2 million, formally announced Thursday at the Victoria Coast Guard station by Randy Kamp, parliamentary secretary for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Two Canadian Coast Guard ice-breakers will begin the mission within the next week. The Sir Wilfred Laurier sails Sunday from James Bay, travelling up the B.C. coast to Alaska, through the Bering Strait and eventually entering Canadian Arctic waters.
The Louis S. St.-Laurent will leave July 4 from Dartmouth, N.S.
The ships will be carrying nearly 100 scientists in various legs, helping to fulfill Canada's $150-million commitment to International Polar Year - an initiative launched by more than 60 countries in March. It is the largest ever multi-national program of scientific research focusing on Arctic and Antarctic regions.
"Over a 24-month period, thousands of scientists and researchers will study a number of polar processes and their global effects,'' Kamp said. "It's an amazing opportunity to study Canada's north so that we can better understand the impacts of climate change on our environment and improve the well-being of our northern communities.
"This research will help us learn more about the role of Canada's third ocean in the global climate and the impact of climate change on Arctic marine ecosystems.''
The Louis S. St.-Laurent will carry out work on the beluga project, which will focus on understanding the behaviour of the whales, which can travel huge distances in little time.
"Belugas sit atop the marine food chain, so understanding their patterns and habits is key to developing better conservation and management strategies,'' Kamp said.
The tracking equipment placed on the whales will also collect data on water conditions, which will be used to help predict environmental affects attributed to climate change.
Other projects announced Thursday include:
* A look at the affects of global warming on Arctic marine mammals, such as polar bears, seals and whales.
* A study with a focus on the effects of climate change on char. "Char typically reflect changes in the environment in a number of ways and are therefore key indicators of the overall health of aquatic ecosystems,'' Kamp said.
* A study on the impacts of severe Arctic weather and climate change on coastal regions along the southern Beaufort Sea and west Canadian Arctic.
* A study on the flow of seawater and pack ice through the Canadian Archipelago.
* The biggest portion of the research ($6.4 million) will go to the Canada's Three Oceans project, in which the two icebreakers will travel through 15,000 kilometres of water as they study how the Pacific, Arctic and Northern Atlantic oceans interconnect and try to understand "the impact of climate change on Arctic ice cover, ocean properties and marine life in an integrated way.''
The goal is to establish a scientific basis for sustainable long-term monitoring.
Eddy Carmack of Sidney, senior scientist for the Canada Three Oceans project, said it is important to observe what is actually happening due to climate change.
"What we're doing is putting an antenna around the nation to pick up subtle signals of climate change as they are happening,'' he said. "We see this as critical to providing data and feedback for the climate modelling community.''
John Nelson, another Sidney-based DFO research scientist who will be aboard the Louis St. Laurent, will study the distribution and composition of different plankton species. Plankton is a food source for various whale species.
"We'd expect that this food source is affected by changes in ocean currents and temperatures,'' Nelson said. "We'll look at how the food is distributed and then we can make some ideas about habitat use, how that might change if temperatures change, currents change, and what effect that will have on large marine mammals.''
Victoria Times Colonist 29 Jun 2007
World’s Largest Icebreaker Ready
The Russian flag is hoisted on the ice-breaker ”50 years after the victory” of the Murmansk shipping company. Now the vessel is ready to conquer high latitudes.
By Anastasia Yakonuk
A
solemn ceremony was organized in the Baltic shipyard in St-Petersburg where the
giant was built.
The foundation of the ice-breaker was laid in 1989, four years later it was floated on the river Neva. Due to lack of finances further construction was postponed. However, 18 years later the works were finally accomplished. It was decided that the Murmansk shipping company would exploit the new ice-breaker.
The capacity of the ”50 years after the victory” is 75 thousand horse-powers. Engineers licked the rostrum into the shape of a spoon in order to be able to press, not crack, the ice with its weight.
During the navigation period 2007, the ice-breaker will begin to operate, conducting ship caravans along the Northern seaway.
Specialists say that the Russian atomic fleet, with the help of the new vessel, will provide cargo transportation in the high latitudes up to 2015.
Euroarctic 26 Mar 2007
http://www.sr.se/euroarctic/artikel.asp?artikel=1276742
Tracy Staedter, Discovery News
Remote and often locked in ice, the Arctic Circle is one of the most variable, sensitive ecosystems on the planet. Now, several Norwegian institutions are joining forces to set up a network of sensors to monitor the underwater environment there and its renewable resources.
The network —
piggybacked on oil pipelines, seafloor platforms, cables and research vessels —
could yield some of the best data yet on even the smallest changes in the
ecosystem.
The information will inform scientists about marine resources from fuel to food.
The impetus for the project, said Olav Rune Godoe, head of the research group at the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, Norway, came out of debates on the Barents Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean north of Norway and Russia.
Although far north, the sea offers an abundance of fish that depend on the spring bloom of phytoplankton.
At the bottom of the food chain, these microorganisms feed zooplankton and krill, which become dinner for other fish such as capelin, which are themselves devoured by cod, an important resource for both Norway and Russia.
Any upset to the spring bloom ripples down the food chain.
Rich in life, the sea is also rich in oil.
Far beneath the ocean floor lie untapped oil reserves, perhaps some of the largest in the world. But for environmental reasons, the Norwegian government has placed strong restrictions on oil exploration in the area.
Norway's fishing industry is not keen on such exploration either, because of the potential damage that oil spills can have on the fishing stocks.
But fisheries would be interested, said Godoe, in more efficient monitoring of stocks for optimal harvests. Instead of exaggerating the conflict, his team is presenting a solution that both the fisheries and the oil industry could benefit from.
"We try to present a win-win situation. If we are able to join efforts here, we might all come out as winners," said Godoe.
The researchers propose that the oil industry build out new pipes and platforms in the Barents Sea and equip the infrastructure with a multitude of sensors.
Sonar sensors, for example, could track and measure the size of fish shoals. Chemicals sensors could monitor the presence of oil, detecting leaks or spills. Other sensors would record the speed and direction of ocean currents, temperature and salinity.
The data could help build computer models of the ecosystem. Scientists could use those models to do everything from anticipating fish stocks, to predicting the underwater conditions for operating sonar, to calculating the route of an oil leak to organize cleaning efforts.
Discovery Channel 02 Mar 2007 http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/03/02/arcticsystem_pla.html?category=earth&guid=20070302093030&dcitc=w19-502-ak-0000
Nunavut iron ore project gets boost from Mitsubishi
A large Japanese
investment company is putting money into an iron ore project on Nunavut's
northern Baffin Island, Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. says.
Baffinland said in a release that Mitsubishi Corp. intends to spend nearly $3 million to buy shares in the Toronto-based junior mining company, which owns the Mary River iron ore deposit 160 kilometres south of Pond Inlet.
Discovered in the 1960s, the iron ore deposit was acquired by Baffinland in 2002. Since then the company has done further exploration work on the property to determine whether it's worth putting into production.
Baffinland said the money from Mitsubishi will be used to pay for the potential development of the project and to explore for more resources.
It is still trying to determine whether it is economically feasible to turn the deposit into a mine.
Iron ore is used in the production of steel.
CBC North 27 Feb 2007
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/02/27/mitsubishi-baffinland.html
The
collapse of two Antarctic iceshelves has exposed an exquisite seabed ecosystem,
including species of crustaceans and marine anemones that have never been
identified, researchers say.
The insight into Antarctica's hidden marine world came from the break-up of the
Larsen A and B ice shelves, 12 and five years ago respectively, that later
formed huge icebergs.
Their collapse exposed 10,000 square kilometres of the seabed that had been
covered by ice for millennia.
An unmanned robot, lowered from a German research vessel, the Polarstern,
explored part of the area as part of a 10-week international expedition that
ended on 30 January.
"The break-up of these iceshelves opened up huge, near pristine portions of the
ocean floor, sealed off from above for at least 5000 years, and possibly up to
12,000 years in the case of Larsen B," says Dr Julian Gutt, the expedition's
chief scientist.
"Until now, scientists have glimpsed life under Antarctica's iceshelves only
through drill holes. We were in the unique position to sample wherever we wanted
in a marine ecosystem considered
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Antarctic sea star from the area that the Larsen B iceshelf once covered (Image: Dijon University/Thomas Saucède) |
one of the least disturbed by humankind anywhere on the
planet."
The team of 52 scientists from 14 countries collected around 1000 species, some
of which are believed to be new to science, and took images of unfamiliar
creatures.
New creatures include 15 shrimp-like crustaceans called amphipods, including one
beast that was nearly 10 centimetres long.
Four presumed new species of organisms related to coral, jellyfish and sea
anemones called cnidarians were also found.
One of them lives on the back of a snail, showing a symbiotic relationship in
which the snail provides locomotion for the cnidarian, and the cnidarian
provides protection for the snail.
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A new giant amphipod, a crustacean nearly 10 centimetres long (Image: C d'Udekem, Royal Belgium Institute for Natural Sciences) |
There were also
blue ice fish, with dorsal fins like ribbed fans and blood that lacks red cells,
an adaptation that makes the blood more fluid and easier to pump through the
animal's body, conserving energy at low temperatures.
Long-limbed sea stars, some with more than the usual five appendages, mingled
with the ice fish, and groups of sea cucumbers were observed moving together,
all in one direction.
At present, international databases have recorded 5957 forms of marine life, but
as many as 11,000 more remain to be discovered.
The researchers discovered the iceshelf had covered a highly varied seabed,
ranging from bedrock to pure mud, with flora and fauna that are as diverse.
In shallower waters to depths of about 220 metres, they came across rich patches
of deep sea lilies, sea cucumbers and urchins, an intriguing find, as these
species usually lurk in deep water of around 2000 metres.
Why are iceshelves important?
Iceshelves in Antarctica are caused by glaciers that reach the coast and then
creep out to sea, floating on the water but still attached to land.
Melting iceshelves are not expected to directly contribute much to global sea
level rise, but glaciologists believe these vast swaths of ice act like dams to
slow down glaciers as they move over the Antarctic land mass toward the coast.
Without the ice shelves, glaciers may move over the water more quickly, and this
would substantially add to rising seas.
In 1992, the so-called Larsen A ice shelf disintegrated, and in 2002, the Larsen
B followed suit, creating the most massive icebergs ever seen.
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This ice fish has no red blood pigments or red blood cells as an adaptation to low temperatures. This makes the blood more fluid, meaning the fish can save energy otherwise needed to pump blood through its body (Image: Alfred Wegener Institute/J Gutt) |
The loss of the shelves is giving
Antarctica-watchers the chance to see how different species move in to colonise
the freshly uncovered seabed, starting with opportunistic gelatinous creatures
called sea squirts and glass sponges.
Mammals, too, have moved in.
"It was surprising how fast such a new habitat was used and colonised by minke
whales in considerable densities," says German specialist Dr Meike Scheidat.
"They indicate that the ecosystem in the water column changed considerably."
The newly-opened vista also provides a barometer for change, for parts of the
Antarctic coast are being hit by global warming at a far greater rate than other
parts of the world.
Local temperatures at the Larsen shelves have risen by 2.5°C since the 1940s.
"This is virgin geography," says Dr Gauthier Chapelle, a biologist at the
Brussels-based
International Polar Foundation.
"If we don't find out what this area is like now following the collapse of the
ice shelf, and what species are there, we won't have any basis to know in 20
years time what has changed and how global warming has altered the marine
ecosystem."
Agence France Press 26 Feb 2007
http://abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?/science/news/stories/2007/1856913.htm
