Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Friday, August 1, 2008
It was fairly un-nerving when, a chunk of ice broke loose from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf off the coast of Ellesmere Island recently, but it had to have been somewhat expected.
The Ward Hunt is near the most northerly point in North America. Located in quttinirpaaq National Park it is the largest of five remnants of a much larger ice shelf discovered by Admiral Peary in 1906.
More than 6 years ago Derek Mueller, then at Universite Laval, Quebec, found the biggest ice shelf in the Arctic was indeed breaking apart.
Canadian RADARSAT images acquired in August 2002 showed a huge crack running North-south down the center of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. Secondary fractures running west had fragmented a large area of the shelf into free-floating ice blocks.
At that time the shelf was home to a fresh water lake. These fresh water lakes are known as ehishelf lakes. That fracturing caused the immediate and catastrophic drainage of an ehishelf lake that had called the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf home. Ehishelf lakes are an important link in the ecology chain. This fresh water ‘floats’ on the more dense ocean water. Located in Disraeli Fjord this was the largest and best-understood epishelf lake in the Northern Hemisphere.
The epishelf lake suddenly spilled more than 3 billion cubic meters of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean.
Ice-dependant ecosystems are made vulnerable by the shifting climate. Microbial communities of algae, micro-invertebrates, and bacteria that could withstand near-freezing water temperatures, freezing and thawing cycles and organisms that used pigment changes to withstand ultraviolet radiation were suddenly and forever lost in that 2000-2002 crack-up and with them much information, and probably many untold secrets.
This most recent chunk of ice to separate from the Ward Hunt is 18 square kilometers across.
The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is estimated to be around 3,000 years old. Ice core climate data and lake sediments indicate the ‘Little Ice Age’ ended about 150 years ago and the climate has been warming since then. Only about 10% of the original ice shelf may be remaining.
They say the precise triggering mechanism for these fractures isn’t known. Although temperature records from Alert which is 175 km east of the Ward Hunt Ice shelf show a significant increase in the annual mean air temperatures during the last 30 years which parallel the thinning and loss of the epishelf lake.
Derek Mueller, now a Trent University researcher says, “We’re in a different climate now.” “It’s not conducive to regrowing them.” [ice sheets] “It’s a one-way process.
In 2003 Mueller wrote of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, “…one thing seems clear: it and the other Ellesmere ice shelves are sentinels of high Arctic environmental change…”
Photo Thanks #2 NASA
#1 Canadian Space Agency
Labels: Arctic, Arctic Ice, Canada, Climate Change, Global Warming, North Pole, Quttinirpaaq National Park, Sea Ice, Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, ehishelf lakes
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Sentinels of the high Arctic are disappearing from their posts.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Russia’s missile cruiser ‘Marshal Ustinov’ is on its way to joining up with the “Severomorsk” which is already in the Svalbard archipelago near Norway.
A Russian Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo says, “We have been talking for a long time about widening our activity in the Arctic.” “There is nothing aggressive in it- it is in the interests of security.”
Protecting Russian fisherman who have been blocked from the seas around the island of Spitsbergen is said to be the aim of the patrols. Norway claims exclusive fishing rights to that area which has a U.N. designated boundary. Russia however does not recognise that boundary.
The Serveromorsk is one of Russia’s Northern Fleet’s submarine destroyer. Russia has said it plans to increase its combat presence in the area.
The seas around Spitzbergen are rich with fish and are claimed by both Norway and Russia. The ships are said to have been sent on requests for protection from Russian fishermen who have been challenged by the Norwegian navy for illegal fishing.
Svalbard was placed under Norwegian sovereignty by a 1920 treaty that Russia does not recognize. Oslo plans to name the archipelago an ‘economic zone which would further bar Russian fishermen from the area.
Spokesman Dygalo categorized the latest patrols in the area as part of “significant expansion of the activities of the Northern Fleet.”
Recognizing some international law but not others?
Dygalo says the movements of the ships will remain “in strict accordance with international law,”
Russian General Vladimir Chamanov has said the training division immediately set out (training) plans for troops that could be engaged in Arctic combat missions. This, following the response from several nations after the flag planting at the North pole.
Arctic Chess anyone?
Chamanov said in an interview with the Russian military daily news Krasnaya Zvezda, “Wars these days are won and lost well before they are launched.”
The U.S. Coast Guard plans over this summer include: The Icebreaker Healy to make as many as 3 scientific research trips into the Arctic with the National Science Foundation.
The Ice breaker Polar Sea returned to Beaufort Sea having been pulled away from the Antarctic.
The Buoy tender Spar will sail from Kodiak to make an accounting of the ’state of Arctic navigation’ assessing needs for lights, buoys and transit separation schemes along with other navigational aids.
C-130 planes will begin flying missions from Nome and Barrow.
The future is now.
Rear Adm. Arthur “Gene” Brooks, commander of Coast Guard District 17, which covers Alaska says, the “new Arctic is now; the effects of polar melting are no longer something that could happen in the distant future.”
Who has been listening indeed.
Brooks also says,”I thought when I first got here (Alaska) that this was an issue for 2020,2030 or 2040.” “My first year in Alaska convinced me the new Arctic is already here, that this is an issue for now. I go around in Alaska and talk to people and say, ‘are you seeing the same things?’ and the response I’m getting is ‘we’ve been seeing these things for years, why haven’t you been listening?’”
Knock knock…who’s there?
The wistful visions of the Arctic being a brilliant white and silent land where exotic creatures roam is a delusion. The largest open-pit mine in the world operates in the polar latitudes. The Red Dog mine sees enormous vehicles truck ore to it’s storage facilities in mile-long warehouses.
Enormous bulk cargo ships, displacing 70,000 tons or more sail through the Chukchi Sea to the the ore. They anchor 11 miles offshore and send in huge ferries to move the ore those 11 miles.
A fleet of at least 18 energy exploration ships set to explore this summer looking for anticipated huge reserves of coal and oil.
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Far more pollution has been streaming into the atmosphere in the Arctic for far long than most people realize. There is no possible way that the exhaust from all the ‘ventures’, from diamond mines to ore ferries, have not contributed substantially to the degradation of the atmosphere over the Arctic.
Ice Road Trucks. Photo Credit: Ken Woroner
‘Marshal Ustinov’ Ship Russia Warefare.Ru
Labels: Arctic, North Pole, Norway, Russia, U.S. Coast Guard
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Fire and Ice. The Arctic is heating up in more ways than one.
Friday, June 27, 2008
The oceans are currently uptaking 22 million tons of CO 2 daily which is making a significant and exponential change in the ocean’s chemistry.
In 2004, it was projected that the pH balance of the oceans would be lower in the middle of this century than they had been for more than 20 MILLION years.
There was a spike in methane release last year from the thawing Arctic permafrost too. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic continues to warm and the permafrost thaws a cycle of carbon release and temperature rise will add to the reverberating feedback cycle…In April Ed Dlugokencky from NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab said, “It’s too soon to tell whether last year’s spike in emissions includes the start of such a trend.”
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That was just 2 short months ago. Now the grim news is that for the first time in human history the ice at the North Pole will disappear entirely if it continues its current rate it will be gone by summer’s end. Science is placing the odds at 50:50. About 70% of the sea ice this spring was new ice formed over last winter. New ice melts faster than the old ice.
Inuit natives, near Baffin Bay, are reporting the sea ice is breaking up much earlier than normal this year. They have also seen wide cracks appearing where the ice normally remains stable.
The rate of Arctic land warming is 3.5 times greater than the average 21st century
warming rates predicted in climate models; more feedback cycles. So much so that
Science News is reporting over the past century the leading edges of conifer forests
have crawled from 20-60 meters of the mountains and have begun to overrun the tundra.
There are now conifers growing where no living tree has grown in the last 1,000 years. The greening of the Arctic is something we don’t want. The albedo, or the extent of which light from the sun can be reflected will be decreased more and more as the ‘green’ of the plant material continues to advance toward the Arctic.
The cycle continues to compound as the tundra thaws and releases methane. Scientists think between 1/3 and 1/2 the CO 2 that has been produced by humans since
the industrial revolution is now in the ocean. Water that is upwelling today is water that was exposed to 1958 CO 2 concentrations. 50 years from now the water being upwelled will be that exposed to the methane and carbon dioxide levels of today…
So, the last thing the Bush Administration wants getting out is a 250 page report by the EPA giving detailed alternative approaches of how to regulate greenhouse gases!
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Did you ever hit that nasty ’send’ button on an email, and wish you could bring it back?
You aren’t alone. It generally happens to me after I’ve had a little too much wine. I’m not suggesting that’s the problem at the White House, but if the cork fits…
The White House demanded that an email the EPA had ’sent’ be ‘recalled’. If, however, the pesky ’send’ button has already been hit, then the White House has its own simple and fairly elegant solution to news it just doesn’t want to see. Just don’t open the email.
That won’t work either.
The EPA apparently had 250 pages of ‘detailed alternative approaches’ to regulate greenhouse gases from fuels, cars and some industry. But, no; the White House doesn’t want anything to do with solving problems. It appears, as is widely speculated, this administration is all about creating problems. Speculated is a generous term in this case. The time for speculation, in regard to the intentions of this administration, has long past.
The Supreme Court had already tried to set the White House straight when it ruled carbon dioxide is an air pollutant, and the Clean Air Act gave the EPA the power to start mandating that new vehicles to reduce their pollutants.
If we do have the technology and the money to regulate greenhouse gases it seems apparent those in power don’t want us to know about them.
Photo Thanks: NOAA
Labels: Acid Ocean, Arctic, Arctic Ice, Baffin, CO2, EPA, Methane, NOAA, North Pole, Ocean, Speak no Evil, Tundra, carbon dioxide, cover-up
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Learn To Take Your Drinks ‘neat’; We’re running out of ice, among other things.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Merriam Webster’s definition of a flash point is 1: the lowest temperature at which vapors above a volatile combustible substance ignite in air when exposed to flame. 2: a point at which someone or something bursts suddenly into action or being.
If there is a second tinderbox on the planet outside of the Middle East that place has to be the Arctic. Never before has the Arctic held such a high potential for becoming potentially explosive.
A report from Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, two of the EU’s top foreign policy officials warns the Arctic is ripe for “significant potential conflicts’.
In their 7 page report, the two warn, the rapid melting of the polar ice caps is changing the geostrategic dynamics of the region.
In what is being called the ‘Solana Report’ the authors call on the EU to draw up an Arctic Policy “based on the evolving geostrategy of the region, taking into account access to resources and the opening of new trade routes.”
The call for EU policy action isn’t a new one. Nearly 4 years ago to the date, the United Nations Environment Programme stated, the “Arctic’s unique environment and indigenous peoples are under increasing threat from industrial activities and the region is likely to change drastically unless decision-makers in the European Union and ‘elsewhere’ address the challenges seriously.”
Prof. Jacqueline McGlade, EEA,European Environment Agency, Executive Director, pointed out in 2004 that, “Indigenous peoples have managed the Arctic’s resources in a sustainable manner for thousands of years…” “Industrialised countries, including the EU nations are both the main users and the main sources of pollution affecting the region.” Indigenous peoples suffer most of the adverse effects of this exploitation while receiving a relatively small share of the benefits.”
“With the high levels of toxic chemicals in local Inuit peoples, the melting of permafrost and the retreat of glaciers across the region, the Arctic is like an environmental early warning system for the world,” UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said in 2004.
Nestled in the heart of this tinderbox are the Inuit. While nestled in the warm halls of the U.N. and in the ‘meet and greets’, officials gather in places like Brussels to discuss the topics of volatility, energy and pollutants. But, no one on earth is touched by the cold, harsh facts of what the future holds for the icy, northern most part of the planet like the Inuit.
Labels: Arctic, Climate Change, EEA, EU, Inuit, Solana Report, U.N.
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Flash Point; Arctic
Thursday, March 20, 2008
On March 18 NASA released a report on Arctic Sea Ice. Global Warming Nay-Sayers are spinning some facts in the report to shore up their argument that Global Warming a vast left wing conspiracy while most mainstream media have made little mention of the report.
At the heart of the study is the perennial sea ice. Perennial sea ice is “old ice”. In fact Walt Meier, National Snow and Ice Data Center calls the oldest ice “tough as nails”. Perennial ice is ice that is more than a year old.
While this March NASA’s Aqua satellite, NOAA and U.S. Defense Department satellites showed a slight increase of 3.9 percent over the previous 3 years it is still below the long-term average by 2.2 percent. The increase in the ice occurred due to surface temperatures that were colder than the historical averages.
Most troubling was the area of perennial ice has decreased to an all-time minimum.
On the heels of the ‘new ice’ comes the summer melt season. The new ice is much thinner. The thick and hardy perennial ice used to cover 50-60% of the Arctic, this year it covers less than 30%.
The ‘tough as nails’ very old ice that remains in the Arctic for at least 6 years made up 20% of the Arctic area in the mid to late 80’s. This winter the tough stuff had decreased to just a tiny 6%.
According to NASA Polar ice reflects light from the sun. As this ice begins to melt, less sunlight gets reflected back into space. The sun is instead absorbed into the oceans and land raising the overall temperature and fueling further melting. This results in a positive feedback loop called ice albedo feedback. The more the ice disappears, the more likely it is to continue to disappear.
Photo Thanks: NASA
In September 2007, the Northwest Passage was ice-free for the first time since satellite records began.
It will be interesting to see the comparison of this image with the September 2008 when it is taken.
Labels: Arctic, Global Warming, NASA, Northwest Passage, Polar Ice
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
NASA Report: Arctic still on "thin ice".
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Maybe our eyes have been turned toward the wrong venue for the long anticipated Apocalypse. Maybe the final war will not be fought for what lies under the sand, but for what lies under the ice.
Last month the United States and Canada signed a little publicized “Civil Assistance Plan”. The U.S. and Canada have a long history of working in concert with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) being the most familiar to the public. So why not celebrate this new Civil Assistance Plan?
David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen’s defence reporter, is asking why all the secrecy surrounding this new signed agreement. The agreement was signed without the U.S. Congress or the Canadian Parliament.
Indeed why all the secrecy? The agreement merely allows the military from one nation to support the military forces of the other during a civil emergency. It sounds like a good idea on the face of it. Maybe the agreement has nothing to do with flu pandemics, earthquakes or domestic emergencies.
Peter McKay, Canadian Defence Minister may think I have my tinfoil hat pulled down too tightly over my head but I’m thinking my idea may be as good as the next guys. I’m wondering if this agreement isn’t more about the Arctic Meltdown than anything else.
Scott G. Borgerson, international affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard has written a nearly 6 page small font single spaced article for FOREIGN AFFAIRS, published by the Council on Foreign Relations. The Article’s Title; Arctic Meltdown. The Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming.
In his paper Borgerson points out Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled oil company has approximately 113 Trillion cubic feet of gas already under development in the Barents Sea and the calculated oil in the territory claimed by Moscow could be as much as 586 billion barrels of oil. With literally billions more barrels of oil and trillions more of gas in the region it isn’t any wonder that the former Lieutenant Commander thinks the Arctic could descend into armed conflict.
There are 5 Arctic powers already trying to carve up, lay claim and otherwise declare the vast, heretofore, uncovered resources as their own.
The trillions upon trillions of dollars of resources are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As Borgerson also brings forward, millions upon millions of dollars will be saved by the shipping industry as the shortcuts of the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage open up due to global warming. Toss in the incredible financial boon to the mega container ships, now too large to navigate the Panama and Suez Canals, and anyone could imagine where this tale will end.
The ‘Civil Assistance Plan was signed by U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuat commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command and by Lt. General Marc Dumais, commander Canada command. The signing was announced on the Northcom website
Photo: NASA.gov
Labels: Arctic, Global Warming, North Pole, Northwest Passage, civil assistance plan, greenhouse gas, oil
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Is A New Stage Being Set For Apocalypse? Theater in the round, under the Northern Lights, on top of the World.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Our friends over at PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, have released internal e-mails from the Department of Interior exposing more of the Bush administration’s shenanigans.
On January 24, Peer told us the Interior Department “Purged Scientific Concerns” about the introduction of invasive species into Arctic waters that would be brought in if offshore drilling was allowed to take place.
On January 29, The United States Department of Interior’s Office of the Solicitor requested PEER “immediately cease your unauthorized publication of [these] privileged communications and return them to MMS, along with any other MMS communications or documents in your possession that MMS has not authorized for disclosure.”
According to the Office of the Solicitor “MMS has a vital interest in protecting internal communications, the release of which would stifle the full and frank internal debate that fosters good government decision making.”
Protecting internal communications appears to be a euphemism for the outright ban on informing the public of the truth. The tax payers of the U.S. pay the wages of all federal employees from the President down to the local dog catchers. To ban from the public information they have, in fact, paid to have compiled is unscrupulous.
January 21, PEER’s news release, “INTERIOR STIFLES POLAR BEAR PROTECTIONS FROM ARCTIC DRILLING”, exposes the truth behind the delay in listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.
Bush’s energy policy may be failing the Arctic, its waters and its inhabitants, but it could be a resounding success for the energy industries. Oil drilling, liquefied natural gas facilities, year-round tanker traffic and the employment of ice breakers to keep it all moving year round flies in the face of environmental responsibility.
These things and the entire accompaniment required to accomplish them are paving the way for untold tons of pollution to be spewed into the air and waters of the Arctic.
The most invasive of species being brought into the region is man and everything he needs to sustain himself. How long before housing, fast food chains and drive thru auto-lube garages begin to litter the landscape?
PEER is the point of the spear.
Photo thanks: MSNBC/John Tidwell
Labels: Arctic, Department of Interior, Oil Drilling, PEER, Polar Bear
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Public Getting Hosed While Bush Administration Attempts to Grease Polar Bears!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Like a rock-n-roll guitar player that stands too close to his amplifier, climate change is now creating a dreaded ‘feedback’ affect.
Loss of ice in the Arctic means less ‘white’ which reflects the sunshine back into space. In the summer we wear white or light colored clothing to reflect the heat of the sun away from us. In the winter we wear dark colors that absorb the heat. The tundra is melting absorbing more heat. The heat is rapidly decomposing plant material and in return releasing methane. Methane is over 20 times more potent than other greenhouse gases.
A study done at the University of East Anglia shows that the North Atlantic Ocean is only absorbing half of the C02 it once did, and southern oceans have stopped absorbing it, and are now releasing C02 back into the atmosphere.
The ocean’s ability to absorb C02 is called C02 sink. Merchant ships equipped with instruments to measure carbon dioxide (C02) in the water have been collecting data every month and have generated more than 90,000 measurements in just the past few years.
The North Atlantic Ocean’s ability to absorb C02 abruptly declined, while the Indian Ocean’s absorption ability was making more of a taper.
Emissions of carbon dioxide from the ocean have actually increased by 40% since 1981.
International team leader Dr. Corinne Le Quere, from the University of Eat Anglia and British Antarctic Survey says, “This is serious. All climate models predict that this kind of ‘feedback will continue and intensify during this century.”
See PSMI’s Franken-plankton story in the archive.
Labels: Arctic, Climate Change, Environment, Frankenplankton, Global Warming, Ocean, Phytoplankton, Sea, carbon dioxide, ecosystems, greenhouse gas
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Oceans Losing The Ability to Trap CO2, they may be reaching the saturation point.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
George Bush says the Northwest Passage is an ‘international passageway’. That seems like a lot of syllables for Bush to be using in only two words, but Bush says a lot of things. Bush also used a lot of syllables when he said ’serious consultations’ need to take place regarding border security. Some language attributed to Bush just don’t sound very Bush’esque. Though he followed up with a Bushism we can believe when he added they were “working hard to get a plan ready”…now that is some Bush language we’ve all grown familiar with.
Paul Cellucci, US ambassador to Canada recently said it would benefit the US if Bush would accept Canada’s claim to the Northwest Passage.
I think we can safely read that as ‘if we all agree the Passage belongs to Canada, then it will be up to Canada to fund, protect and oversee the Passage.
Canada gearing up with a C$100m military training center in Resolute, and a deepwater facility near the Northwest Passage is certainly the first step toward giving Canada the ability to protect and oversee the Passage.
11 ships were able to use the Passage in 2006. With more and more of the polar ice melting more and more ships will be attempting to cut thousands of miles off their voyages.
No good deed goes unpunished. After the US handed the Panama Canal over to Panama they found the monumental canal in the hands of the Chinese. This illustrates the desperate need for another passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific if the opportunity arises.
It would do the free world quite a lot of good to assess in what hands the Northwest Passage should rest. The canal was cut through the very core of the Continental Divide. Until and if the Northwest passage opens up and becomes a truly viable route, the Panama Canal remains the most vital piece of water on the planet. Illustrating the importance of the this little bit of water is the fact that it shaves 4,500 miles off a trip by sea from Tokyo and London. Forget what that means to commerce, and just consider the meaning in military terms.
Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage
And make a northwest passage to the sea
Stan Rogers
Photo American University ICE project
Labels: Arctic, Canada, Global Warming, North Pole, Northwest Passage, Ocean, Russia, USA
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Whose Line is it Anyway? Whose Passage is it Anyway?
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Denmark is but the next nation in the race to stake a claim to the Arctic’s north pole and its potentially vast oil and mineral deposits. Helge Sander, Denmark’s Minister of science , technology and innovation believes …”there are things suggesting that Denmark could be given the North Pole.”
Begging the question sir…PSMI would like to know: Given by whom?
Peter MacKay, the Canadian Foreign Minister has said of the Russians “…You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say, ‘We’re claiming this territory’.”
Apparently the Russians don’t believe this to be the case. The Russians claim to have planted a rust-proof Titanium flag which, as Akademik Fedorov claims will be there 100, or even 1,000 years from now planted in Yellow colored gravel 4,261 meters beneath the North Pole.
One might wonder who would be going 13,980 feet below the North Pole besides Mrs. Claus, looking for the mister. But, there is an apparent rush by several nations to reach just that depth.
Among the Russian plummeting the depths of the deep sea beds were a Swedish Pharmaceuticals millionaire and an Australian who co-sponsored the expedition along with the Russian Government. As a special bonus, Putin awarded Artur Chilingarov, who led the expedition, the status of “presidential envoy to the Arctic”.
Samples were taken of the soil in an effort to scientifically and legally claim the ‘yellow gravel’ under the North Pole is Russian Gravel.
Now the line to lay claim to the vast wealth that could be sleeping below the North Pole forms behind the Russians. Next in cue: Canada as they have no Titanium flag planted yet, followed by Denmark, Norway and the US.
Until recently the biggest challenge, or more succinctly put hindrance, was the Arctic Ice. Until global warming came to melt it all away there really was no point in becoming involved in a race that could have no profitable outcome.
With so many nations, peppered with the occasional mogul, one has to start wondering in what language they should print their “snow cone hut’ signage.
Open voor Zaken, Open for Business Eh, Open, Open, Open!
Labels: Arctic, Canada, Global Warming, North Pole, Ocean, Russia
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Santa Facing Competition at The North Pole: Move Over Fat Man in Red!
