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| Russians Claim North Pole
Posted: 8/13/2007 1:59:46 PM | Is this the link you're talking about? NY Times - two ways to split up the Arctic ocean - 9 Oct 2005
Not exactly the same one but close enough. The map I was referring to also includes some detailed info about future improved accessability to the NW Passage, N. Sea Route and Arctic Bridge as well as known Arctic oil/gas reserves.
While Canada loses most of its claim to the Alpha Ridge to "unclaimable territory" in the Russian plan, I can't imagine how having a larger portion of the Arctic as unclaimable territory is necessarily a bad thing (particularly if it works out that unclaimable equals unexploitable).
Given that the Lomonosov Ridge appears (at least by current maps) to be equally joined (or not joined depending on how you look at it) to both the Canada/Greenland and Russian continetal shelves I think the best decision would be to declare it a separate seafloor feature thereby making a larger portion of the Arctic unclaimable (followed by international treaty making it unexploitable). | |
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| Russians Claim North Pole
Posted: 8/13/2007 2:53:42 PM | | The worlds children will be disappointed when they hear that Santa and the elves will no longer be giving away the toys but will be trading them with the Russian oil riggers for Vodka. | |
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| Russians Claim North Pole
Posted: 8/13/2007 3:59:36 PM |
Researchers have forecast ice-free summers in the Arctic by 2040.
Arctic sea ice set to hit new low
Arctic sea ice is expected to retreat to a record low by the end of this summer, scientists have predicted.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6944401.stm | |
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| Russians Claim North Pole
Posted: 8/13/2007 4:34:24 PM | The Russians can't claim the North Pole.
Captain Nemo claimed it in the late 1800's.
Read the historical text "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" by historian Jules Verne. | |
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| Russians Claim North Pole
Posted: 8/13/2007 5:49:35 PM |
Arctic sea ice set to hit new low
Arctic sea ice is expected to retreat to a record low by the end of this summer, scientists have predicted.
That may not be a bad thing, think of the toll fees we could collect for sailing the NW Passage.
Set up a toll station off Banks Island and another off Devon Island and then sit back and rake in the cash.
It could be almost as lucrative as the seabed resources. | |
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| Russians Claim North Pole
Posted: 8/13/2007 6:06:55 PM |
That may not be a bad thing, think of the toll fees we could collect for sailing the NW Passage
maybe mungo, but we might all be sailing around in our own manmade Noah's arks:
Sea ice has a bright surface that reflects 80% of the sunlight that strikes it back into space. However, as the ice melts during the summer, more of the dark ocean surface becomes exposed.
Rather than reflecting sunlight, the ocean absorbs 90% of it, causing the waters to warm and increase the rate of melting.
Scientists fear that this feedback mechanism will have major consequences for wildlife in the region, not least polar bears, which traverse ice-floes in search of food.
On a global scale, the Earth would lose a major reflective surface and so absorb more solar energy, potentially accelerating climatic change across the world.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6944401.stm | |
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| Russians Claim North Pole
Posted: 8/13/2007 6:33:18 PM | Give the Russians credit. They did something without killing a large group of people. Why didn't our navy get their first? The US geological survey knew about the vast riches of the Arctic sea. Somebody did not do their homework.
If the Americans put a flag there all hell would break loose. Nobody gives a shit that the Russians very quietly made a move for their well being.
We had some sort of military presence until Trudeau came to power. I suppose we can have a challenge game against the Russians to claim the prize. I say we take the water and sell it .We need the water to run our oil industry as well.
The Russians know that oil is a highly coveted commodity.We have to get our oil riches tapped and prepare our future generations for success.
Long live Canada | |
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| Russians Claim North Pole
Posted: 9/23/2007 2:10:05 AM | pretty good article from Time:
Fight for the Top of the World
...After 25 years of false starts, planning and construction, the first Arctic industrial oil-and-gas operation outside of Alaska was up and running. Norway's state-owned petroleum firm Statoil could finally exploit once unreachable reserves,...
...for the first time in recorded history, the Northwest Passage was ice-free all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The Arctic ice cap's loss through melting this year was 10 times the recent annual average, amounting to an area greater than that of Texas and New Mexico combined.
...The current interest in the Arctic, in short, is a perfect storm seeded with political opportunism, national pride, military muscle flexing, high energy prices and the arcane exigencies of international law. But the tale begins with global warming, which is transforming the Arctic. The ice cap, which floats atop much of the Arctic Ocean, is at least 25% smaller than it was 30 years ago. As the heat-reflecting ice that has made the Arctic the most inaccessible and uncharted part of the earth turns into water — which absorbs heat — the shrinkage is accelerating faster than climate models ever predicted.
On Aug. 28, satellite images analyzed by the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center revealed that the Arctic ice cap was already 10% smaller than at its previous record minimum, in September 2005 — and it still had about a month of further melting to go.
...But there is something paradoxical about seeking in the Arctic the very carbon fuels that are melting the northern ice. "The rush to exploit Arctic resources can only perpetuate the vicious cycle of human-induced climate change," says Mike Townsley of Greenpeace International.
...In truth, of course, it isn't military encroachment the Canadians fear so much as the environmental peril that may come from unregulated use of their waters. Cruise ships transporting Arctic ecotourists, many of them Russian vessels hired out to Western tour operators, anchored off Resolute 17 times this year alone.
Once the Northwest Passage becomes not just a tourist destination but a viable commercial route that would cut an astonishing 5,000 miles (8,000 km) from the distance between Asia and Europe through the Panama Canal, shipping traffic could explode. "The idea of Liberian-registered tankers chugging through the Northwest Passage or oil spills that can't be cleaned up — that's what terrifies me," says Mike Beedell, an Arctic adventurer who sailed a small sailboat through the passage 20 years ago.
...How can competing claims to the Arctic — of environmentalists and entrepreneurs, nations and natives — be reconciled? Antarctica, with no native population, has been saved from international competition by a treaty signed in 1959, which (among other things) bans all mining there until 2041. There have always been advocates of such an approach in the Arctic, but given well-established local populations and long-standing national claims, they have never gotten very far.
...what Science Minister Helge Sander refers to as "our hopefully justified claim of a continental shelf from Greenland toward the North Pole." The Danes know that scientific inquiry alone will not determine who gets what in the north. "When we are talking resources, we are also talking politics," says Sander, who predicts that the demarcation of rights to the Arctic will end with a "dogfight at the International Court of Justice in the Hague."
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1663445,00.html
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