Global warming is established fact

Global warming is established fact

It was with growing distress that I read Cal Thomas' op- ed, "Global Warming fanatics might not heed the facts" on Aug. 20. He, like the few remaining global warming naysayers, have latched onto the recent adjustments in 1934 temperature data as evidence that global warming is a myth perpetrated by "fanatics."

A full explanation of the data adjustment and its minor impact on climate change information can be found at the realclimate.org entry for August 10, titled "1934 and all that" by Dr. Gavin Schmidt.

According to Dr. Schmidt, who is a climate modeler at GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Science), "The sum total of this change? A couple of hundredths of degrees in the U.S. rankings and no change in anything that could be considered climatically important (specifically long term trends)."

Dr. Schmidt presents both sides of the controversy, with data. Mr. Thomas expresses his opinion, and includes only the information that supports his position.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts." I suspect Mr. Thomas, like too many Americans, does not understand scientific inquiry and the statistical analysis of data. The interpretation of scientific data should be left to those with the proper training, like Dr. Schmidt. His RealClimate Web site is a great resource for information about global warming, including controversies such as the one presented by Mr. Thomas.

The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is that global warming is a fact, that it is due to human activity and that we are running out of time to reverse some of its effects. Mr. Thomas does his readers a great disservice by encouraging them to delay in responding to the global warming crisis. We need to get past the senseless debate about the fact of global warming and proceed immediately to developing strategies to address it.

Global Warming, Atmospheric CO2 Increase, and Northeast China's Forest Carbon Stocks

CO2 Science

What was done
The authors used northeast China forest inventory datasets for the three inventory periods of 1984-1988, 1989-1993 and 1994-1998, plus NOAA/AVHRR Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data from 1982 to 1999, to estimate changes in forest carbon (C) stocks in this region over the last two decades, during which time this part of China experienced, in their words, "the largest increase in temperature over the past several decades in the country."

What was learned
The four researchers determined that fully 75% of the forest area in northeast China experienced an increase in biomass C density over the period of study, and that forest biomass C stocks increased by a total of 7%, primarily as a result of large increases in two humid mountain areas, the Changbai Mountains and northern Xiaoxing'anling Mountains. Noting the "significantly positive relationships between NDVI and temperature in these regions," they concluded that "climate warming may be the key driving force for this C increase," since "over the past two decades, the average temperature in the forest region of northeast China has increased with a mean increase rate of 0.066癈/year." Also, in this regard, it is worth noting that the atmosphere's CO 2 concentration increased by approximately 8%.

What it means
During a period of time when the "twin evils" of the radical environmentalist movement - atmospheric temperature and CO 2 concentration - rose by amounts the world's climate alarmists claim were unprecedented over the past thousand to a million or more years, respectively, forest C stocks in northeast China rose ever higher with each passing year. Clearly, something is drastically wrong with this picture ... and it's not the real-world data.

Underground Research into Climate Change - Associated Content

Underground Research into Climate Change - Associated Content
 

 

Climate change is not only happening in the world we can see, but it is also happening in the world we cannot see, in places like the soil, subsurface waters and ground waters.

An international team of scientists from CSIRO Australia and USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is working to try and predict how climate change is impacting water that exists below ground level.

The only way to do this is to use simulated interactions between the soils and plants. This is important because it will show how sensitive the chain of soil to water to vegetation is to the climate changes. They did this by simulating daily weather patterns and matched them up with historical records and using that data were able to predict future climates.

The daily weather prediction that resulted was then entered into a model that represented all aspects of the soil, water, plant chain-how the soil adsorbs water, the way the water flows, and is stored in the soil, the level of surface evaporation, plant uptake of the water, the amount of water that is given off as vapor, and deep drainage below the roots of trees and grasses that eventually becomes groundwater recharge.

The results of the simulation were that changes in the temperatures and rainfall were found to affect the growth rates and leaf size of plants which impacts groundwater recharge. No plants, no water to go back into the ground Also in some of the test areas, the way the vegetation responded to climate change would cause the average recharge to decrease, but in other areas, the exact opposite happened and the recharge to groundwater would more than double.

The outcome of this research will play an important part in how land and water management agencies and policy makers all over the world deal with the future we face due to climate change.

Right now the fact that our atmosphere will double it's concentration of carbon dioxide is just a scenario, but when and or if it becomes as reality the indications from this survey are that the rate of groundwater recharge has the chance to increase due to the fact that the results of the changes in rainfall are amplified by the soil-water-plant systems that control groundwater recharge

This could be a double edged sword because is could be considered as either a positive or a negative and no mater how it is perceived, the potential size of the change gives everyone involved a strong motivation to gain as much knowledge of these systems as possible in order to improve the predictions and future responses.
 

U. S. Coral Reef Task Force Launches New Climate Change Effort

U. S. Coral Reef Task Force Launches New Climate Change Effort

During its biannual meeting this week in Pago Pago, American Samoa, the U. S. Coral Reef Task Force announced the formation of a new climate change working group and endorsed a renewed call to action and evaluation of task force effectiveness as part of its 10-year anniversary in 2008.

The new climate change working group is charged with developing best practices to help local resource managers minimize the impact of climate-induced stresses like coral bleaching and ocean acidification while better educating the public about the impacts of climate change on the health and survival of reef resources. Components of the decision also called for developing bleaching response plans for each U.S. state and territory with reefs, and assessing what expertise and resources federal agencies have to mitigate risk and damage.

The task force further called on members and partners to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and affirmed the role that regional networks of marine protected areas can play in protecting ecological connectivity among islands in the face of potential future losses that may result due to climate change.

"This new climate change working group will be composed of experts from across the 19-agency task force in climate science, coral bleaching, ocean acidification, and management actions relevant to the coral reef and climate nexus," said Timothy Keeney, deputy assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and task force co-chair. "We recognize and are acting to address the vulnerability of island and coastal communities to changes in shoreline protection, fisheries and tourism as a result of climate change effects to coral reefs."

The creation of the climate change group is considered a major new step for the task force, but one that builds on several past resolutions and the 2005 release of The Reef Manager's Guide to Coral Bleaching.The Reef Manager's Guide provides information on the causes and consequences of coral bleaching, and helps managers understand and plan for bleaching events.

"I join with the governors of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and other regional leaders here today to support this increased leadership from the task force to address the threat of climate change," said American Samoa Governor Togiola Tulafono, local meeting host and author of the recent climate change statement that prompted the task force to take additional action. "Small island jurisdictions like American Samoa will feel the brunt of climate change's effects on our island economies and ecosystems, and it is critical we take a more proactive and precautionary approach to addressing these risks."

As part of this effort, the task force hosted a special session on the health of coral reef ecosystems in a changing climate, drawing from the regional and international expertise to highlight common challenges and management needs.

Discussion will continue next week as 30 local experts from U.S. Pacific states and territories, Fiji, and Western Samoa meet in Pago Pago, American Samoa to share strategies and learn how to use tools that predict where coral bleaching will occur, measure coral reef resilience, and assess the socioeconomic impacts of climate damage. The workshop, part of global series, will be hosted by NOAA, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and The Nature Conservancy, who partnered with the World Conservation Congress and others to release the Reef Manager's Guide.

In response to the declaration of 2008 as the International Year of the Reef by the International Coral Reef Initiative, the task force also voted to use next year to assess, strengthen and enhance its mission, role, and activities. Non-government and research partners will be a major part of this assessment, as they were in the development of the original National Action Plan in 2000.

A renewed call to action is one part of a larger IYOR Action Plan adopted at the meeting. The IYOR Action Plan features new and strengthened partnerships across the government and non-government communities to more effectively reach the American public with coordinated messages about coral reef decline and the role individuals, organizations and businesses can play in helping to halt that decline.

The task force passed two additional resolutions. The first defined and launched 'phase two' of a highly successful Local Action Strategy initiative, which created three-year plans for local action that implemented hundreds of targeted conservation projects worth millions of dollars. The second resolution recognized a new strategic plan and charter for the U.S. All Islands Coral Reef Committee, which represents the governors and executive branches of the states, commonwealths, territories and Freely Associated States possessing coral reefs.

A Presidential Executive Order established the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force in 1998 to lead U.S. efforts to preserve and protect coral reef ecosystems. Through the coordinated efforts of its members, including representatives of 12 federal agencies, the governors of seven states and territories, and the leaders of the Freely Associated States, the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force has helped lead U.S. efforts to protect and manage valuable coral reef ecosystems in the U.S. and internationally. NOAA and Department of Interior co-chair the Task Force.

No doubt: Climate change is real

Taipei Times - archives

Typhoon Sepat was the third typhoon to strike the nation within two weeks. It caused incessant heavy rains all over the country. But in the rest of the world, there have been even more serious natural disasters and meteorological phenomena this year.

In the beginning of June, the Arabian Sea saw the formation of Gonu -- a tropical cyclone of almost legendary proportions. Its highest 10-minute average wind speed was 240kph, a wind force of 17 on the Beaufort scale. Gonu made landfall in Oman on June 5, becoming the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall on the Arabian Peninsula. It caused more than 70 deaths in the desert nation, and caused a rise in oil prices.

In last month and this month, South Asia saw continuous heavy rain for more than 20 days. An estimated 2 million people had to be evacuated from their homes and more than 1,400 people died. After this disaster, famine and contagious diseases threatened the north of India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Disaster relief has been chaotic, and the countries will have to depend on foreign aid to rebuild after the disaster.

Other areas have experienced unusual weather. This May and June, the UK saw the heaviest rain in 200 years. Exceptional floods occurred in many provinces of China, including in dry areas like Xinjiang and Shaanxi. A 100-year-record amount of rain fell in Chongqing. And it has been raining incessantly in North Korea where floods have caused many losses.

Yet while some places in the world were suffering from floods, other areas were plagued by high temperatures for days on end, causing droughts and fires.

In the end of last month, temperatures in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Greece rose above 40oC. More the 500 people died because of the heat, and forest fires were almost out of control. Nearby Ankara suffered from drought and people tried to invoke the pity of heaven by praying for rain in public ceremonies.

In China to the south of the Yangtze, large areas saw record temperatures of more than 39oC. High temperatures in Fujian Province, across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan, continued for a month, breaking a record set in 1880.

The US Midwest has seen a very hot summer, and in the middle of this month temperatures in many areas were above 37oC for days at a time. Because of the hot weather, too much electricity was used in the New York area system, forcing the city's subway to come to a halt and causing serious traffic problems. Temperatures in Japan have been as high as 40.9oC, causing train rails to bend out of shape. Many Japanese suffered heat stroke and even died of the heat. Australia's worst drought in a thousand years has gone into its ninth continuous year, taking a heavy toll on farmers.

Official reports of the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) point out that in the first half of this year, there was a higher number of unusual meteorological phenomena than in the past, and the average temperatures in January and April had broken all past records.

The organization could not make any predictions as to whether there would be more unusual or extreme weather in the second half of this year.

In 1992, the first Earth Summit was held. At this summit, countries agreed on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), later followed up by the Kyoto Protocol. The UNFCCC demands that all countries take action to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions and called on them to officially acknowledge global climate change. Although the US didn't want to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, US President George W. Bush made sure that plans were passed for climatological action, officially acknowledging the issue of climate change.

Now everyone acknowledges climate change, and some countries are emphasizing research, like the UK and Japan. In only 10 years, Japan has developed the Earth Simulator, a computer model of the planet, which can calculate and predict changes in the atmosphere, the ocean and on land. In 1992, South Korea and China also started to promote research in climate change. They not only train talented scientists, the results of these countries' research are also officially included in this year's report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Every single year, Taiwan sends a delegation to the UN climatological convention, but the nation's government is not allowed to join in the research effort. In the past 15 years, countries have not been able to come up with any clear results for predicting average climatological change and unusual weather incidents.

In the future, as climate change continues and natural disasters become more frequent, it will become harder and harder to handle these problems because they were not dealt with at an early stage when they were still somewhat small. This is a worrying development.

global warming on India

 As exceptionally heavy rains continued to cut a wide swath of ruin across northern India, a top United Nations official warned Tuesday that

the vagaries of climate change could destroy vast areas of farmland in this country, ultimately affecting food production and adding to the

woes of already desperate peasants who live off of the land.

Even a small increase in temperatures, said Jacques Diouf, director general of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, could

push down crop yields in southern regions of the world, even as agricultural productivity goes up in northern climes like Europe. A greater

frequency of droughts and floods, the agency added, could be particularly bad for agriculture.

"Rain-fed agriculture in marginal areas in semi-arid and subhumid regions is mostly at risk," Diouf said on a visit to the southern Indian city

of Chennai. "India could lose 125 million tons of its rain-fed cereal production, equivalent to 18 percent of its total production."

That is a signal of the steep human and economic impact of extreme weather in India, where a majority of peasants still rely on the rains to

irrigate their fields and where a bad flood can be nearly as devastating as a bad drought. The latest floods have affected an estimated 20

million people in India alone, 8 million in neighboring Bangladesh and 300,000 in Nepal, according to the United Nations children's agency.

The World Meteorological Organization said in a statement on Tuesday that the region experienced double the normal number of monsoon

depressions in the first half of the four-month rainy season which started in June, causing heavy rainfall and flooding across South Asia.

Today in Africa & Middle East
32 suspected militants killed by U.S.-led troopsPolice fight to remove West Bank settlersU.S. alleges Iran-supplied bombs taking higher toll on

troops in IraqNearly a third of India's meteorological districts received higher-than-average rains, according to government figures. The

latest tally released by the Home Ministry reads like an inventory of ruin: nearly 8,000 square miles of agricultural land inundated since the

start of the monsoon two months ago, more than 130,000 houses destroyed, 1,428 people killed.

Government relief teams have fanned out across northern Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh States, dropping relief packets by air. Even as the

rains stopped over the last couple of days, stagnant water raised the risks of water-borne disease, from diarrhea to dengue fever, in areas

that are already among the nation's poorest and least healthy. There have been no reports of disease outbreaks yet.

India stands to bear the brunt of some of the worst effects of climate change, in large measure because it is ill-prepared. When the rivers

swell, fragile embankments burst. Mud and thatch houses easily crumble. When the water rises, as it does year after year to varying degrees,

Indian peasants are ritually stranded.

"These floods are a curse to us," Ganesh Acharya, 40, said by telephone from a marooned part of Bihar State. "Our lives comes to a standstill."

In his village, he said, the rice crop had washed away, and people have had to paddle to a nearby village to buy basic goods, at far higher

prices than normal.

Shiv Shankar Acharya, 58, a local college lecturer, said he did not recall when so much water had accumulated, and had refused to subside for

more than 10 days.

 

Russia's race for the Arctic2

 -- The Washington Times

Today's Russian rhetoric is reminiscent of the past two centuries. The leader of the Arctic expedition, Artur Chilingarov, deputy chairman of the Russian Duma, proclaimed, "The Arctic is ours and we should manifest our presence." Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Institute declared, "This is like placing a flag on the moon" — conveniently forgetting the United States never claimed the moon as its territory.

Andrei Kokoshin, chairman of a parliamentary committee on the ex-Soviet region, said Russia "will have to actively defend its interests in the Arctic" and called for reinforcing Russia's Northern Fleet and border guard units and building airfields to "ensure full control." Vladimir Putin spoke on a Russian nuclear powered ice-breaker earlier this year, urging greater efforts to secure Russia's "strategic, economic, scientific and defense interests" in the Arctic.

A crisis over Russian claims in the Arctic would be perfectly avoidable, if Russia is prepared to behave in a more civilized manner. If Moscow suggested exploring the Arctic's wealth in a cooperative fashion, in partnership with the United States and other countries aboard, this could become a productive project that furthered international cooperation. However, the current rush to dominate the Arctic Ocean and everything under it indicates that greed and aggression characterize the new Russian polar bear.

The State Department has expressed its skepticism regarding planting of the Russian flag, and said it has no legal standing or effect on Russia's claim. Canada has voiced similar objections.

To stop the expansion, the U.S. should encourage its friends and allies — Canada, Denmark and Norway — to pursue their claims in the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. While the United Sates has not ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), other Arctic countries, including Norway and Denmark, have filed their own claims with the Commission, opposing Russian demands.

The Nordic countries do not view Russia's attempted seabed grab kindly. Nor should they. The U.S. should also encourage Canada to coordinate a possible claim through the International Justice Court in The Hague against the Russian grab.

Russia's decision to take an aggressive stand has left the U.S., Canada and the Nordic countries little choice but to design a cooperative High North strategy, and invite other friendly countries, such as Great Britain, to expend the necessary means to build up the Western presence in the Arctic. This will probably have to include a fleet of modern icebreakers, submersibles, geophysics/seismic vessels, and polar aircraft.

There is too much at stake to leave it to the Russian bear.

Russia's race for the Arctic -- The Washington Times, America's Newspaper1

Russia's race for the Arctic 

By planting the Russian flag on the seabed under the North Pole and claiming a sector of the Continental Shelf the size of Western Europe, Moscow generated a new source of international tension, seemingly out of the blue.

Geopolitics and geoeconomics are driving Moscow's latest moves. The potential profits are certainly compelling. Geologists believe a quarter of the world's oil and gas — billions of barrels and trillions of cubic feet — may be located on the Arctic Continental Shelf and possibly under the polar cap.

The Arctic, the final frontier, also harbors precious, ferrous and nonferrous metals, as well as diamonds. At today's prices, these riches may be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. And if the ice caps melt and shrink, not only will these resources will be more accessible than they are today, but a new sea route along the northern coast of Eurasia may be open to reach them.

The other side of the economic coin is political — the exploration and exploitation of polar petroleum and other resources may be a mega-project for the 21st century — the kind of opportunity that Russia is seeking to satisfy its ambition to become what President Vladimir Putin has termed "an energy superpower."

In 2001 Russia filed a claim to expand the continental shelf with the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf under the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), to which it is a party. However, in 2002 the commission declared it neither accepts nor rejects the Russian claim, and demanded more study. Russia plans to resubmit the claim, and expects to get the answer by 2010.

Russia's claims are literally on thin ice. Moscow is extending its claim to the Arctic Ocean seabed based on its control of the Lomonosov Ridge and the Mendeleev Ridge, two underwater geological structures that jut into the ocean from the Russian continental shelf. However, it looks like the ridges do not extend far enough to justify Moscow's claims beyond its 200-mile economic zone, while other countries also claim control of the same area.

This latest move by Moscow is also a chilling throwback to the 1930s Stalinist attempts to conquer the Arctic during the years when the U.S.S.R. was seized by fear and hatred. Stalin and his henchmen executed "enemies of the people" by the hundreds of thousands in mock trials and in the basements of the Lubyanka secret police headquarters, or in unnamed killing sites in the woods. Those not yet arrested were forced to applaud the "heroes of the Arctic": pilots, sailors and explorers, in a macabre celebration of Stalinist tyranny.

To the regime's critics, today's expedition is a chilly reminder of the brutal era when millions of Gulag prisoners were sent to the frozen expanses to build senseless mega-projects for the power-crazy dictator.

The Arctic mission is Putin’s revenge on the USA for Alaska

The Arctic mission is Putin's revenge on the USA for Alaska 

A Lithuanian business daily Verslon Zinios published an interesting editorial on Russia's claim of Arctic.  Few passages from the editorial.

First of all the mini subs which planted the flag on the Arctic Sea bed  of the Ocean are called Mir-1 and Mir-2.  The daily notices that the Mir station was orbiting the Earth from 1986 until 2001.  It is also symbolic that the last Soviet citizen Cosmonaut Mr Krikaliov also flew in Mir station.  It happened that he took off still in the Soviet Union and landed already few months since the Soviet Union was a history.

The daily notices that the stories about claims of a territory in the Moon and in the Mars could be read in the 'Various news' sections but the Titanium flag on the Sea bed is a fact of life and this issue will be seriously discussed at the UN sessions and in the capitals of the world.  Once again, Russian has taken an initiative and is winning the PR war.

The editorial states that it looks as if the citizens of planet will not find a substituted to oil and gas in the nearest future not only Europe will be more dependent from the Russian energy resources, but the USA will follow the Europe's fate.  That would be Putin's sweet revenge on the USA for 'buying off Alaska from Russia'.

It could only be added that the battle for Arctic only just begun.  Sine this is a battle for the energy recourses it could get very hot in the coldest Earth's continent.  The Kremlin strategists should hope for a war in the Middle East, the European Union's short sightness on the energy unity, and the acceleration of the Global worming.  The future is bright, the future is Arctic! 

Arctic explorers return to hero's welcome in Moscow

Arctic explorers return to hero's welcome in Moscow 

MOSCOW: Russian explorers who planted a flag beneath the ice at the North Pole returned to a hero's welcome in Moscow on Tuesday and shrugged off foreign criticism of their mission.

"The Arctic always was Russian, and it will remain Russian," the expedition leader, Artur Chilingarov, said after arriving at Vnukovo airport near Moscow, where well-wishers brandished bottles of champagne and Russian flags.

"I am happy that we placed a Russian flag on the ocean floor, where no one has ever been before, and I couldn't care less what some foreigners say."

Russia wants to extend right up to the North Pole the territory it controls in the Arctic, believed to hold vast resources of oil and natural gas that are expected to become more accessible as climate change melts the ice cap.

A mechanical arm of a small submarine dropped a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 meters, or 13,980 feet, last week, staking a symbolic claim to the energy riches of the Arctic.

But the move has provoked criticism from abroad.

Foreign Minister Peter Mackay of Canada has said Russia was behaving like a 15th-century explorer. In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said: "A metal flag, a rubber flag or a bed sheet on the ocean floor" did not have "any legal standing or effect on this claim."

In remarks broadcast on state television, President Vladimir Putin congratulated the team of explorers, saying "Your work was interesting, crucial, important for the country and not without risk."

But Putin, in more cautious remarks, also said the team's achievement would provide the groundwork for Russia's official position on who owns the Arctic Ocean seabed. "This, of course, must be discussed with our colleagues and be proven in international bodies," he said, according to the Russian media.

Canadian military heads North to show the flag on Arctic sovereignty

Canadian military heads North to show the flag on Arctic sovereignty

OTTAWA — The Canadian military began a 10-day "sovereignty operation" in the Arctic on Tuesday, just days after the government dismissed a Russian expedition to the region as "no threat to Canadian sovereignty."
 
The military operation, dubbed "Operation NANOOK 07," is a joint exercise involving 600 personnel from the navy, army and air force, as well as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Coast Guard.
 
From August 7 to 17, the troops and personnel will practise responding to two scenarios in and around Iqaluit, the Baffin Island coast, and the Hudson Strait. The first involves the Canadian Forces answering a call from the RCMP for assistance with a drug bust and the second will have the military helping the Coast Guard with an environmental protection event.
 
While the exercises are focused on those specific tasks, their very presence in the North will serve the greater purpose of protecting Canada's territory, the military said in a news release.
 
"Canadian Forces operations in Canada's North are an important dimension toward ensuring the protection of Canadian sovereignty," Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais said. "Quite simply, these exercises allow us to turn our knowledge and skills into valuable experience." 

The operation comes as Prime Minister Stephen Harper sets out on a three-day visit to the North that ends in Iqaluit on Friday. It also follows the uproar last week when Russia planted its flag on the North Pole seabed.
 
Russia's dive below the Arctic waters is widely seen by observers as a symbol of its determination to claim a large chunk of the Arctic Ocean floor.
 
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay described Russia's bold move as "just a show" of Russian bravado and "no threat to Canadian sovereignty."  But as MacKay downplayed the Russian expedition, Harper said it was another indication of the growing importance of the Arctic region and of Canada's need to assert its sovereignty over it.
 
In recent months, the Canadian government has been stepping up its focus on the Arctic. Harper recently announced a plan to spend $7 billion on the construction, retrofitting and maintenance of up to eight reinforced Arctic patrol vessels.
 
"Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic," Harper said last month. "We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it."

Sentido.tv :: Economics :: Russian Mission to Claim Arctic Sea-bed in Bid to Drill for Oil, Gas

Sentido.tv :: Economics :: Russian Mission to Claim Arctic Sea-bed in Bid to Drill for Oil, Gas

RUSSIAN MISSION TO CLAIM ARCTIC SEA-BED IN BID TO DRILL FOR OIL, GAS
4 OTHER 'ARCTIC' NATIONS SAY MOVE IS MISGUIDED, FEAR RUSSIA TRYING TO UNILATERALLY ALTER MARITIME TREATIES
7 August 2007

Russia has launched an exploration mission to the North Pole, in an effort to plant a flag at the sea bottom and claim the land (and by extension the resources that lie beneath the sea-bed). Some of the world's most extensive reserves of natural gas and possibly petroleum are believed to lie beneath Arctic Ocean sea-bed.

Five nations border the Arctic Ocean, and each has laid out legal claims to part of the territory leading to the North Pole, though in legal and technical terms, the Pole is far enough from any actual continental land-mass to be well into international waters. At present, no international body manages the resources found at the bottom of the Arctic Sea, or their extraction or commerce relating to them.

Russia has put for the argument that according to studies of faultlines and major tectonic plates, the Arctic Ocean sea-bed is part of the continental shelf extending north from Russia, to the Pole. This would not actually place the resources under the sea at the open disposal of Russia, as territorial waters are not measured in this way out in the open sea.

Sergei Balyasnikov, a spokesman for the Arctic and Antarctic research institute that prepared the expedition, told the AP: "For the first time in history people will go down to the sea bed under the North Pole," adding: "It's like putting a flag on the moon." The comment is a clear reference to the pioneering American expedition to the lunar surface, and an attempt to assuage fears that Russia is conducting the expedition as a "land grab" as some have suggested.

According to CNN's reporting, "Russian scientists hope to dive in two mini-submarines beneath the pole to a depth of more than 13,200 feet, and drop a metal capsule containing the Russian flag on the sea bed."

The cable news service also adds that the Russian government is claiming 460,000 square miles of the Arctic shelf as Russian geological territory, in the hopes of securing as Russian resources the estimated 10 billion tons of oil and gas thought to be waiting for extraction under the sea-bed of the Arctic Ocean. [s]

Russia's Deep-Sea Flag-Planting at North Pole Strikes a Chill in Canada

Russia's Deep-Sea Flag-Planting at North Pole Strikes a Chill in Canada

TORONTO, Aug. 6 -- A dramatic submarine dive to plant the Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole last week has rattled Canadian politics and underscored the growing stakes as the ice cap melts in the oil-rich Arctic.

Canada and the United States scoffed at the legal significance of the dive by a Russian mini-sub to set the flag on the seabed Thursday. "This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags" to claim territory, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, Peter MacKay, told reporters.

But the government here has been thrown on the defensive by the Russian action, accused by critics of doing too little to meet a deadline for the five Arctic nations to map and claim huge areas of the Arctic seabed.

A U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker left Seattle on Monday for an area 500 miles north of Barrow, Alaska, where a contingent of 20 scientists are to continue compiling an undersea map in preparation for a U.S. claim of the resources there.

Canada has not equipped itself to do the same. It has no icebreakers heavy enough to tackle the Arctic ice head-on.

In the view of opposition leader Jack Layton, head of the New Democratic Party, the government has responded with little more than rhetoric to threats to Canadian sovereignty in its frozen backyard. "Canada must move quickly and make immediate, strategic investments in its Arctic," Layton said Sunday.

The 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea gives each of the five Arctic nations -- Canada, the United States, Russia, Denmark and Norway -- 10 years after their ratification of the treaty to map out the Arctic seabed.

The maps, along with sediment samples and other scientific information, can be used to claim parts of the seabed that are extensions of the continental shelf of each nation. The claim would apply to the buried resources, not to the water above.

For years, progress under the international treaty was slow. The United States has not ratified the convention, though observers expect that to happen soon under the Democratic-controlled Congress. Global warming has added a sudden urgency to the process by thinning the Arctic ice cap, making drilling and shipping more feasible.

The potential rewards are great. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas lies in the Arctic.

"The huge irony is that we are only talking about this because humanity has burned so much oil and gas that the ice is melting," said Michael Byers, an international law expert at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver . "It could be a vicious cycle: Climate change is opening up the Arctic to oil and gas drilling, which almost certainly will cause more climate change."

Russia, the first of the Arctic nations to ratify the treaty, has undertaken extensive mapping using its huge nuclear-powered icebreakers. Norway and Denmark have also conducted undersea mapping. Canada, which ratified the treaty in 2003, is cooperating with Denmark on the ice northeast of Ellesmere Island, setting off explosives to seismically map the ground under the Lincoln Sea region of the Arctic Ocean .

The United States has been mapping the Chukchi Cap area since 2003, according to Larry Mayer, director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire . That area is not expected to conflict with Russian claims, he said.

Mayer, who will join the icebreaker USCGC Healy as chief scientist, said the U.S. mapping effort will be greatly aided by sonar mapping done by U.S. Navy nuclear submarines that routinely cruised under the Arctic cap during the Cold War. That classified information has gradually been made public for scientists' use, Mayer said.

Canada historically has considered much of the North American side of the frozen Arctic its territory and bristles at U.S. claims that the thawing Northwest Passage through that area is an international strait. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is to tour Arctic communities this week, has called the Arctic "central to our identity as a northern nation."

But Canada has no northern deep-sea port and no submarines capable of traveling under the Arctic cap; its aging icebreakers were built for work on the Arctic's edges and in the St. Lawrence Seaway. It has a minimal military presence in the north and counts on the traditional presence of the native Inuit people to bolster its claims to the thousands of scattered islands that make up the Canadian archipelago.

Layton said Canada's larger problem is its failure to try to stop the warming that is opening up the Arctic. "Climate change policy is northern policy, and we have no time to waste," he said.