Melting Ice in the North West Passage Photo: Getty

The Russians lack the advanced engineering skills, particularly in exploiting deepwater oil and gas reserves, and are heavily dependent on the expertise of Western oil majors, which in turn desperately need to book reserves of future supplies to keep their investors happy.

It is this deal that should serve as a model for future interactions between Russia and foreign governments; not just the six other Arctic powers, such as Canada and the United States, but others, China and the EU member states among them, that lie far distant. For each of these governments has to recognise that it has a vested interest in avoiding confrontation in the Arctic region.

This is based partly on an altruistic and humanitarian concern to prevent accidents that could unleash environmental damage on a massive scale, similar to the Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989, when an oil tanker ran aground in ice-laden waters.

But it also represents a strong material self-interest: in the Arctic, as elsewhere, the mere risk of confrontation over precious resources could easily send financial markets into panic, spiking the spot price of commodities in a way that would damage every consumer.

By contrast, the region’s resources can be exploited more successfully, as well as in a more environmentally friendly manner, if countries work together to pool their skills and expertise.

The mere threat of resource shortages should prompt us to exploit the remaining reserves to the full, not to fight over them. Besides commercial cooperation, there are other joint ventures in the Arctic that could tap this self-interest to help foster international harmony. Russia and Nato could work together to confront the mutual challenges in the waters of the Northeast Passage that runs along Russia’s northern coasts.

Since international shipping is just starting to make use of this route, working groups could also be established to tackle any prospective environmental disaster caused by collision, accidents and catastrophe.

In the coming decades, governments must recognise that it is in their interests to work together in the Arctic and to use regional climate change as an opportunity to help build the relationships between them.

Roger Howard is the author of ‘The Arctic Gold Rush: The New Race for Tomorrow’s Natural Resources’ (Continuum 2009)

Arctic climate change ‘to spark domino effect’

January 31, 2012

The rate of Arctic climate change was now faster than ecosystems and traditional Arctic societies could adapt to.

WA-based scientists have warned of “dire consequences” to the human race after detecting the first signs of dangerous climate change in the Arctic.

The scientists, from the University of WA, claim the region is fast approaching a series of imminent “tipping points” which could trigger a domino effect of large-scale climate change across the entire planet.

In a paper published in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ journal AMBIO and Nature Climate Change, the lead author and director of UWA’s Oceans Institute, Winthrop Professor Carlos Duarte, said the Arctic region contained arguably the greatest concentration of potential tipping elements for global climate change.

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“If set in motion, they can generate profound climate change which places the Arctic not at the periphery but at the core of the Earth system,” Professor Duarte said.  ”There is evidence that these forces are starting to be set in motion.”

“This has major consequences for the future of human kind as climate change progresses.”

Professor Duarte said the loss of Arctic summer sea ice forecast over the next four decades − if not before − was expected to have abrupt knock-on effects in northern mid-latitudes, including Beijing, Tokyo, London, Moscow, Berlin and New York.

Research showed that the Arctic was warming at three times the global average and the loss of sea ice – which had melted faster in summer than predicted − was linked tentatively to recent extreme cold winters in Europe.

Professor Duarte − winner of last year’s prestigious Prix d’Excellence awarded by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea − said the most dangerous aspect of Arctic climate change was the risk of passing critical “tipping points”.

In the next 10 years, Professor Duarte warned summer sea ice could be largely confined to north of coastal Greenland and Ellesmere Island, and was likely to disappear entirely by mid-century.

A drop in Arctic ice had opened new shipping routes, expanded oil, gas and mineral exploitation and led to new harbours, houses, roads, airports, power stations and other support facilities.

It had triggered a new gold rush to access these resources, with recent struggles by China, Brazil and India to join the Arctic Council where the split of these resources was being discussed.

But increased deposits of black carbon (soot) from coal-burning power stations had accelerated warming and ice melt.

Professor Duarte said the rate of Arctic climate change was now faster than ecosystems and traditional Arctic societies could adapt to.

The Arctic was expected to stop being a carbon dioxide sink and become a source of greenhouse gases if seawater temperatures rose by 4-5C.

“It represents a test of our capacity as scientists, and as societies to respond to abrupt climate change,” Professor Duarte said.

“We need to stop debating the existence of tipping points in the Arctic and start managing the reality of dangerous climate change.

“We argue that tipping points do not have to be points of no return.

“Several tipping points, such as the loss of summer sea ice, may be reversible in principle − although hard in practice.

“However, should these changes involve extinction of key species − such as polar bears, walruses, ice-dependent seals and more than 1000 species of ice algae − the changes could represent a point of no return.

“Confusion distracts attention from the urgent need to focus on developing early warning indicators of abrupt climate change, address its human causes and rebuild resilience in climate, ecosystems and communities.”

 
Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/arctic-climate-change-to-spark-domino-effect-20120130-1qpgv.html#ixzz1lKAY34zk

Thin ice jeopardizes polar bears in Manitoba

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In Nome, preparations to flush a million gallons of fuel across sea ice

Hundreds of polar bears in northeastern Manitoba may face an increased risk of starvation due to delayed ice formation along the western coast of Hudson Bay, conservationists say.

Higher-than-normal temperatures have prevented ice from forming in the region, putting it three to four weeks behind schedule, according to the Canadian Ice Service, a division of Environment Canada. As a result, minimum ice cover there is the lowest since 1971, Canadian Ice Service forecaster Luc Desjardins said.

Formation of sea ice is critical for polar bears, which use it as a platform for catching seals and other marine mammals.

While a recent aerial survey of 333 polar bears along the bay’s western coast showed the bears to be in good condition, conservationists worry the animals’ health will deteriorate quickly if ice does not form in the next few weeks.

“The conditions that are occurring are indicative of the ice coverage that we would see probably in the mid-October time frame, rather than the mid-November,” Desjardins told CBC News last month.

Normally by late November, a thin layer of ice up to 15 miles long would have formed, stretching seaward from the bay’s western and southern coastlines, he said.

“The ice is almost non-existent this year, compared to our long-term normal,” Desjardins said.

Where there is ice, “it’s very patchy in terms of formation and it’s not a distinct pattern that affects the entire length of the coast of Hudson Bay.”

Desjardins stressed that the amount of ice has fluctuated in recent years and 2010 levels are not “significantly different” from those of the last five or six years.

What is different, however, is temperature: the region’s air temperature is “consistently warmer” than in recent years, he said.

In Nunavut’s Foxe Basin, the temperature is 14 degrees above normal.

Winter is the polar bear’s feasting season. From November until early summer, they fatten themselves on ringed seals, bearded seals and other mammals. In the summer, during what’s called a “walking hibernation,” the average polar bear loses 1.6 kilograms of weight per day.

Ideally, the slow, heavy predators have enough weight by the end of the summer to make it back onto the ice platforms and hunt anew for fatty mammals.

“The longer that ice is in forming, the longer the polar bears have to survive on the fat reserves they put down in the spring and conserved right through the summer,” said Peter Ewin, an Arctic specialist for the World Wildlife Fund.

“The later it gets, the more weak bears there are who probably aren’t going to make it through,” he said.

On Nov. 17, Manitoba Conservation, along with the WWF, Polar Bears International, and York Factory First Nation Resource Management Board, conducted an aerial survey of 333 polar bears along Hudson Bay’s western coast. The bears had been off the ice since July 15.

The results were “surprisingly pleasant,” said Darryll Hedman, a regional wildlife manager for the provincial agency.

Many of the mostly single, adult males were relatively fat, with “wide rear ends” and a belly “with a dish to it,” Hedman said. Cubs were also considered to be doing well, based on how their fat rippled when they ran.

“As far as I’m concerned, the condition of the bears that we’ve seen in the last couple of days, they’re doing OK,” he said. “The condition of them was good.”

Hedman emphasized the aerial survey was “just a snapshot in time” and warned the bears will become “exponentially skinnier.”

“As time goes on, and the ice doesn’t come in, they’re going to be getting hungrier and hungrier,” he said.

Desjardins, Hedman and Ewin all agree the ice will come, eventually.

“Hudson Bay will freeze over this winter, there’s no doubt in my mind,” said ice expert Desjardins.

This story is posted on Alaska Dispatch as part of Eye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.