In a warming Arctic, US faces new security concerns

[longknife]

The USCGC Berthold provides security in the Arctic near Barrow, Alaska.

Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times
By Kim Murphy
Los Angeles Times
Published: October 22, 2012

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Chief Machinery Technician Julius Jose runs a small boat from the USCGC Berthold, which provides security in the Arctic near Barrow, Alaska.


BARROW, Alaska — In past years, these remote gray waters of the Alaskan Arctic saw little more than the occasional cargo barge and Eskimo whaling boat. No more.

This summer, when the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Bertholf was monitoring shipping traffic along the desolate tundra coast, its radar displays were often brightly lighted with mysterious targets.

There were oil drilling rigs, research vessels, fuel barges, small cruise ships. A few were sailboats that had ventured through the Northwest Passage above Canada. On a single day in August, 95 ships were detected between Prudhoe Bay and Wainwright off America’s least defended coastline, and for some of them, Coast Guard officials had no idea what the vessels were carrying or who was on them.

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[Old Rocks]

As the ice disappears from the Arctic in the summer months, there are going to be all kinds of new things happening. And some real surprises for all.

Even by the 'alarmists' predictions, what we are seeing now was not supposed to happen until the end of this century. If the Arctic is essentially ice free by 2020, that will create an very rapid warming over the land in the Arctic, also. So there will new resources revealed there, also. As well as some new major problems as the permafrost melts. In the meantime, this is not happening without effecting the rest of the world. And what those effects will be a decade down the road, nobody really knows. But we are going to find out.

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - we all like a frog inna boilin' kettle o' water...

UN: Permafrost Thaw Could Significantly Warm Planet
November 27, 2012 - Thawing permafrost, especially in the northern hemisphere, could send huge amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by the end of this century, according to a U.N. Environment Program report released today at international climate talks in Doha, Qatar.

The report's authors say air temperatures in the world's arctic and alpine regions are expected to increase at roughly twice the global rate. These regional greenhouse gas emissions could ultimately account for up to 39 percent of total planet-wide emissions, says lead author Kevin Schaefer, from the University of Colorado’s Snow and Ice Data Center.

“The release of carbon dioxide and methane from warming permafrost is irreversible. Once the organic matter thaws and decays away, there is no way to put it back into the atmosphere,” he added.

Warming can radically alter ecosystems and cause costly damage or even destroy buildings, roads, pipelines, railways and power lines. The report recommends a special commission to study permafrost emissions, the creation of a national permafrost monitoring network and the development of a plan for adaptation for nations at greatest risk.

Delegates in Doha are meeting to craft a new international climate agreement after the 1997 Kyoto treaty expires next month. As they seek to establish new targets for emission reductions to combat global warming, the new U.N. report urges them to factor in the rapidly melting permafrost.

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Climate change is happening "before our eyes"...

Arctic sea ice larger than US melted this year
Nov 28,`12 -- An area of Arctic sea ice bigger than the United States melted this year, according the U.N. weather agency, which said the dramatic decline illustrates that climate change is happening "before our eyes."

In a report released at U.N. climate talks in the Qatari capital of Doha, the World Meteorological Organization said the Arctic ice melt was one of a myriad of extreme and record-breaking weather events to hit the planet in 2012. Droughts devastated nearly two-thirds of the United States as well western Russia and southern Europe. Floods swamped west Africa and heat waves left much of the Northern Hemisphere sweltering.

But it was the ice melt that seemed to dominate the annual climate report, with the U.N. concluding ice cover had reached "a new record low" in the area around the North Pole and that the loss from March to September was a staggering 11.83 million square kilometers (4.57 million square miles) - an area bigger than the United States. "The alarming rate of its melt this year highlighted the far-reaching changes taking place on Earth's oceans and biosphere," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said. "Climate change is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records."

The dire climate news - following on the heels of a report Tuesday that found melting permafrost could significantly amplify global warming - comes as delegates from nearly 200 countries struggled for a third day to lay the groundwork for a deal that would cut emissions in an attempt to ensure that temperatures don't rise more than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) over what they were in preindustrial times. Temperatures have already risen about 0.8 degrees C (1.4 degrees F), according to the latest report by the IPCC. Discord between rich and poor countries on who should do what has kept the two-decade-old U.N. talks from delivering on that goal, and global emissions are still going up.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, urged delegates to heed the science and quickly take action. "When I had the privilege in 2007 of accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC, in my speech I asked the rhetorical question, `Will those responsible for decisions in the field of climate change at the global level listen to the voice of science and knowledge, which is now loud and clear,' " he said. "I am not sure our voice is louder today but it is certainly clearer on the basis of the new knowledge."

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[waltky]

Melting makes easy access for Arctic resources...

Icy Arctic rising as economic, security hot spot
May 10, 2013 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The icy Arctic is emerging as a global economic hot spot - and one that is becoming a security concern for the U.S. as world powers jockey to tap its vast energy resources and stake out unclaimed territories.

Diplomats from eight Arctic nations, including Secretary of State John Kerry, will meet next week over how to protect the thawing region as its waterways increasingly open to commercial shipping traffic. U.S. officials estimate the Arctic holds 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil reserves, and 30 percent of undiscovered gas deposits. Until recently, however, the lucrative resources that could reap hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues were frozen over and unreachable. But global warming has melted sea ice to levels that have given rise to what experts describe as a kind of gold rush scramble to the Arctic.

On Friday, President Barack Obama announced a new U.S. strategy for the Arctic, calling the region "an amazing place" and maintaining a need among nations to protect its fragile environment and keep it free of conflict. "An undisciplined approach to exploring new opportunities in this frontier could result in significant harm to the region, to our national security interests, and to the global good," the 13-page strategy concluded.

The Arctic is getting hotter faster than any part of the globe. Experts predict the region will be free of sea ice during the summer within about 20 years. Sea ice is important because it keeps the rest of the world cooler, and some scientific studies suggest that its melting may be indirectly connected to the extreme weather in the United States and elsewhere in the past few years, changing global weather patterns, including the track of Superstorm Sandy. The environmental changes could threaten not only polar bears, whales, seals and indigenous communities hunting those animals for food, but also islands and low-lying areas much farther away, from Florida to Bangladesh.

Yet the melting may be a boon for business. New shipping routes could provide faster and cheaper passageway for worldwide exports and cargo hauling, including everything from food and electronics to cars and military equipment. And it could also bolster global tourism with cruises in the region's around-the-clock summertime daylight. But the big prize is the vast and untapped supply of oil, gas, minerals and precious metals that are believed to be buried in the Arctic. Already, there is a global race to get energy out of areas that in the past were locked up in ice and frozen ground.

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