Nature Features
US seeks foothold as melting Arctic invites conflict
By Pat Reber Jul 11, 2007, 4:31 GMT
Washington - No longer the preserve of dramatic adventure and heroic rescues, the frozen Arctic is shedding its isolation and image as a place too harsh for ship passages and a military presence.
Instead, as the Arctic ice melts faster than anyone expected, US military and science officials are warning of coming military and strategic conflicts as commercial, transport and energy interests - in addition to other countries - eye the rapid Arctic melt for exploitation.
For the first time this week, top US Naval and Coast Guard commanders are meeting with Arctic scientists and climate experts to assess the situation - a high level symposium that its sponsors say reflects the growing concern in Washington about climate change and national security.
'It's past time' to face the economic and geopolitical 'consequences of global climate change,' said Rear Admiral Timothy McGee, commander of the US Navy's meteorology and oceanography command.
He said the US 'absolutely' must boost its presence in the Arctic region as part of an international coalition.
The US would establish forward bases, increase its fleet patrols of Arctic waters, review its Arctic policies and seek more international cooperation on the issue, top officials like Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the commandant of the US Coast Guard Thad Allen and a deputy chief of Naval Operations, Vice Admiral John Morgan, told the gathering.
With an ice-free Arctic summer expected by 2050, shipping lines could knock from 6,000 to 9,000 kilometres - or up to half the distance - off the Asia-to-Europe route as passages open up. Shipping season will likely add another three to four months by the end of the century, officials said.
The Russians already escorted several ships - at a high price, some say - through the Northern Sea Route in 2005 and 2006, which will likely be the first route to have a more permanent opening, said Canadian Douglas Bancroft, director of the Canadian Ice Service. He expected the transpolar route to be next in line to open, while the vaunted Northwest passage through Canada's Arctic archipelago is more likely to remain closed longest, as Arctic ice seems to be concentrating in the region.
Aside from the lucrative transport routes, the Arctic contains an estimated 25 per cent of the planet's oil and gas reserves, diamonds, nickel and other minerals, adding up to a huge push on the Arctic's ecological, strategic and commercial potential - and making it an attractive asset contested by the eight countries that border on the Arctic.
Russia is already claiming rights to the northern passage because the route lies within its 320-kilometre-coastal margin of economic sovereignty guaranteed under the UN's Law of the Sea - a 15-year-old treaty that the United States has not yet ratified.
Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday promised to build as many as eight armed vessels to patrol the Arctic under a strategy that includes building a deep-water port, to fulfill a promise of his election platform.
Participants at the Washington symposium made frequent calls for ratification of the treaty by the US Senate, as US President George W Bush is urging, to strengthen the US interests in the Arctic.
The Arctic Council - which also includes Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Canada and Iceland - will meet again in early 2009, by which time Mead Treadwell - chairman of the US Arctic Research Commission that helped sponsor the meeting - hopes the US has a strong plan in place.
Otherwise, Treadwell fears, there will be a 'train wreck' resulting from the patchwork of competing national interests and standards in shipping, ecology and search and rescue missions.
On a separate issue, symposium speakers were openly worried that the US military is not equipped for service in the frozen North. That's because it only owns three ice cutters, one of which is out of service. A second is on its last legs and a third is too small, Treadwell said. In fact, the US Navy must lease time on German, Swedish and even Russian cutters.
'We want ... to ensure the safety, reliability and freedom of passage and the environmental protection of the region in the increasingly accessible Arctic,' he said in an interview.
At home, climate change in the Arctic and elsewhere in the world raises threats to US security, and is expected to become part of the regular National Intelligence Estimates prepared for the White House and other parts of government, Commander Sean Maybee of the Center for Naval Analyses told the audience.
The rapid melt could also have positive strategic and diplomatic results, and generate more cooperation within the Arctic Council.
Russia and the US, for example, share the Bering Strait, a 'choke point for transportation we see coming,' noted Treadwell.
The melt could create an 'opportunity for partnerships' and be a chance to 'reach across and bring Russia into a meaningful alliance with the West,' McGee said.
McGee compared the vast unexplored regions of the Arctic to the unexplored Middle East of 100 years ago, when western armies were just beginning to venture into the region.
'They didn't get it right,' he said. 'This time (with the Arctic), we have to get it right,' he said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Kinda reminds me of when they had studies showing global warming caused worse hurricanes, then after one year of no hurricanes they said yep global warming study shows less hurricanes, now after obvious fact that the sun warms up the planet is a factor in any kind of warming now we get hit with a tree hugger bogus study to disclaim it. If you cant see thru this your an idiot.
The earth has been subjected to many warming and cooling periods over millions of years, none of which were of human origin. Data from many independent sources have mutually corroborated these effects. They include data from coring both the Antarctic ice cap and sediments from the Sargasso Sea, from stalagmites, from tree rings, from up-wellings in the oceans, and from crustaceans trapped in pre-historic rock formations.
The onset of each 100,000-year abrupt warming period has been coincident with emissions into the atmosphere of large amounts of both carbon dioxide and methane greenhouse gases, which absorb additional heat from the sun, a secondary warming effect. Solar radiation would appear to be the initial forcing event in which warming oceans waters release dissolved carbon dioxide, and melt methane hydrates, both of which are present in the oceans in vast quantities. Subsequent declines in radiation are associated with long cooling periods in which the green house gases then gradually disappear (are re-absorbed) into terrestrial and ocean sinks, as reflected in the data from coring the Antarctic Ice Cap and Sargasso Sea.
The current 100 year solar radiation cycle may now have reached its peak, and irradiation intensity has been observed to be declining. This might account for the very recent net cessation of emission of green house gases into the atmosphere starting about 1988, in spite of increasing generation of anthropomorphically-sourced industrial-based green house gases.
While it seems likely that solar radiation, rather than human activity, is the 'forcing agent' for global warming, the subject surely needs more study.
'Aside from the lucrative transport routes, the Arctic contains an estimated 25 per cent of the planet's oil and gas reserves, diamonds, nickel and other minerals, adding up to a huge push on the Arctic's ecological, strategic and commercial potential - and making it an attractive asset contested by the eight countries that border on the Arctic. '
The 'Arctic'? some of these assets are on land and we have treaties for the rest that are at sea. Whats the problem???
Icehold - didn't you read the article above that the Sun is NOT the cause ?
Belinda - if you can't distinguish between general wartming from solar radiation and the RATE OF INCREASE due to the sun (now shown not to be positive, much to the chagrin of the anti CO2-cause-of-warming brigade), then don't waste other people's time with your stupid comments
'US must boost it's presence in the Arctic' Why ? The US coastline is only around 10% of the Arctic borders - Russia is nearly 50% and Canada also has a very large proportion.
Is this another case of unwarranted US aggression ? The US is only a minor player in this region
One?One study and your convinced?...From the spin doctors at the royal society...Unreal...Global warming(Now Climate Change)is a religion...What will you believe next?
Belinda - try reading and learning -
Climate myths: It's all a conspiracy
17:00 16 May 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Conspiracy (noun): a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
If you believe that tens of thousands of scientists are colluding in a massive conspiracy, nothing anyone can say is likely to dissuade you. But there are less extreme versions of this argument.
One is that climate scientists foster alarmism about global warming to boost their funding. Another is that climate scientists' dependence on government funding ensures they toe the official line (pdf).
It has taken more than a century to reach the current scientific consensus on climate change (see Many leading scientists question the idea of human-induced climate change). It has come about through a steadily growing body of evidence from many different sources, and the process has hardly been secret.
Now that there is a consensus, those whose findings challenge the orthodoxy are always going have a tougher time convincing their peers, as in any field of science. For this reason, there will inevitably be pressure on scientists who challenge the consensus. But findings or ideas that clash with the idea of human-induced global warming have not been suppressed or ignored – far from it.
Cosmic rays
In fact, many of the better arguments seized upon by sceptics have been based on contradictory findings published in prominent journals, from the apparent cooling of the lower atmosphere (see The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming) to the apparent cooling of the oceans (see The oceans are cooling).
Millions will be spent testing whether cosmic rays can form cloud condensation nuclei, even though some regard this as a waste of money (see Cosmic rays are causing climate change).
As for funding, the US spends billions of dollars on climate science and this increased by 55% from 1994 to 2004. However, an increasing portion of this is spent on mitigation technology rather than pure research. Climate scientists point out that if they were after a bigger chunk of that money, their best bet would be to stress the uncertainties of climate change and call for more research, rather than call for action.
Under pressure
As for the idea that scientists change their tune to keep their paymasters happy, under the current US administration many scientists claim they have been pressurised to tone down findings relating to climate change (see US fudging of climate science details revealed).
Indeed, those campaigning for action to prevent further warming have had to battle against huge vested interests, including the fossil-fuel industry and its many political allies. Many of the individuals and organisations challenging the idea of global warming have received funding from companies such as ExxonMobil.
That in itself does not necessarily mean that the sceptics are wrong, of course. Nor does the fact that most scientists believe in climate change necessarily make it true. What counts is the evidence. And the evidence – that the world is getting warmer, that the warming is largely due to human emissions, and that the downsides of further warming will outweigh the positive effects – is very strong and getting stronger.
Finally, perhaps the most bizarre conspiracy-related claim is that the journalists covering science have an interest in promoting global warming.
Journalists do have an interest in promoting themselves (and their books), while their employers want to boost their audience and sell advertising. Publicity helps with all these aims, but you get far more publicity by challenging the mainstream view than by promoting it. Which helps explain why so many sections of the media continue to publish or broadcast the claims of deniers, regardless of their merit.
Climate myths: Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans
17:00 16 May 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Switch off the Sun and Earth would become a very chilly place. No one denies our star's central role in determining how warm our planet is. The issue today is how much solar changes have contributed to the recent warming, and what that tells us about future climate.
The total amount of solar energy reaching Earth can vary due to changes in the Sun's output, such as those associated with sunspots, or in Earth's orbit. Orbital oscillations can also result in different parts of Earth getting more or less sunlight even when the total amount reaching the planet remains constant – similar to the way the tilt in Earth's axis produces the hemispheric seasons. There may also be more subtle effects (see Climate myths: Cosmic rays are causing climate change), but these remain unproven.
On timescales that vary from millions of years through to the more familiar 11-year sunspot cycles, variations in the amount of solar energy reaching Earth have a huge influence on our atmosphere and climate. But the Sun is far from being the only player.
How do we know? According to solar physicists, the sun emitted a third less energy about 4 billion years ago and has been steadily brightening ever since. Yet for most of this time, Earth has been even warmer than today, a phenomenon sometimes called the faint sun paradox. The reason: higher levels of greenhouse gases trapping more of the sun’s heat.
Amplified effect
Nearer our own time, the coming and going of the ice ages that have gripped the planet in the past two million years were probably triggered by fractional changes in solar heating (caused by wobbles in the planet’s orbit, known as Milankovitch cycles).
The cooling and warming during the ice ages and interglacial periods, however, was far greater than would be expected from the tiny changes in solar energy reaching the Earth. The temperature changes must have been somehow amplified. This most probably happened through the growth of ice sheets, which reflect more solar radiation back into space than darker land or ocean, and transfers of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean.
Analysis of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica shows a very strong correlation between CO2 levels in the atmosphere and temperatures. But what causes what? Proponents of solar influence point out that that temperatures sometimes change first. This, they say, suggest that warming causes rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, not vice versa. What is actually happening is a far more complicated interaction (see Ice cores show CO2 only rose after the start of warm periods).
Sunspot trouble
So what role, if any, have solar fluctuations had in recent temperature changes? While we can work out how Earth's orbit has changed going back many millions of years, we have no first-hand record of the changes in solar output associated with sunspots before the 20th century.
It is true that sunspot records go back to the 17th century, but sunspots actually block the Sun's radiation. It is the smaller bright spots (faculae) that increase the Sun's output and these were not recorded until more recently. The correlation between sunspots and bright faculae is not perfect, so estimates of solar activity based on sunspot records may be out by as much as 30%.
The other method of working out past solar activity is to measure levels of carbon-14 and beryllium-10 in tree rings and ice cores. These isotopes are formed when cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, and higher sunspot activity is associated with increases in the solar wind that deflect more galactic cosmic rays away from Earth. Yet again, though, the correlation is not perfect. What is more, recent evidence suggests that the deposition of beryllium-10 can be affected by climate changes, making it even less reliable as a measure of past solar activity.
Recent rises
Despite these problems, most studies suggest that before the industrial age, there was a good correlation between natural “forcings' – solar fluctuations and other factors such as the dust ejected by volcanoes – and average global temperatures. Solar forcing may have been largely responsible for warming in the late 19th and early 20th century, levelling off during the mid-century cooling (see Global temperatures fell between 1940 and 1980).
The 2007 IPCC report halved the maximum likely influence of solar forcing on warming over the past 250 years from 40% to 20%. This was based on a reanalysis of the likely changes in solar forcing since the 17th century.
But even if solar forcing in the past was more important than this estimate suggests, as some scientists think, there is no correlation between solar activity and the strong warming during the past 40 years. Claims that this is the case have not stood up to scrutiny (pdf document).
Direct measurements of solar output since 1978 show a steady rise and fall over the 11-year sunspot cycle, but no upwards or downward trend .
Similarly, there is no trend in direct measurements of the Sun's ultraviolet output and in cosmic rays. So for the period for which we have direct, reliable records, the Earth has warmed dramatically even though there has been no corresponding rise in any kind of solar activity.
Try opening your mind and reading both sides. They mention climate scientists in this article although the supposed concensus is not climate scientists, it is any type of scientist...Hello?
'Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
'Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus.
'Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.'
To above post - thank you for the concise and clear point you make. Whether Belinda and other non-scientists understand it is another matter, but I live in hope
Regards
The above poster does have it exactly correct, but you do not!!
You spent the entire first page trying to prove that the consensus was for warming being caused by people and not the sun or other natural event. Also that most believe this, so it must be correct.
Now you come out and agree with someone that is telling you how far off base you are. Are you nuts or what?? You are saying the consensus is always correct, and he is telling you correctly that the consensus is usually wrong when politics are involved.
page: 1
!!Jul 11th, 2007 - 07:53:08
Solar activity 'not the cause of global warming'
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 11 July 2007
Claims that increased solar activity is the cause of global warming - rather than man-made greenhouse gases - have been comprehensively disproved by a detailed study of the Sun.
Scientists have delivered the final blow to the theory that recent global warming can be explained by variations in the natural cycles of the Sun - a favourite refuge for climate sceptics who dismiss the influence of greenhouse-gas emissions.
An analysis of the records of all of the Sun's activities over the past few decades - such as sunspot cycles and magnetic fields - shows that since 1985 solar activity has decreased significantly, while global warming has continued to increase.
Mike Lockwood, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, Oxfordshire, said: 'In 1985, the Sun did a U-turn in every respect. It no longer went in the right direction to contribute to global warming. We think it's almost completely conclusive proof that the Sun does not account for the recent increases in global warming.'
The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A, shows there is no doubt that solar activity over the past 20 years has run in the opposite direction to global warming, and therefore cannot explain rises in average global temperatures.
Dr Lockwood and his colleague Claus Fröhlich, of the World Radiation Centre in Davos Dorf, Switzerland, have produced the most powerful counter argument to suggestions that current warming is part of the natural cycle of solar activities. 'There is considerable evidence for solar influence on Earth's pre-industrial climate, and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial change in the first half of the last century,' they write.
However, since about 1940 there has been no evidence to suggest that increases in global average temperatures were caused by solar activity. 'Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified,' the two scientists said.
The theory that past changes in solar activity may have explained some changes in the climate before the industrial revolution is not in dispute. In previous centuries, for instance, notably between about 1420 and 1570, when the Vikings had to abandon their Greenland settlements, solar minima corresponded with unusually cool weather, such as the 'little ice age' of the 17th century.
But climate sceptics have exploited this to dispute the idea that man-made emissions are responsible for global warming. In the recent Channel 4 programme The Great Global Warming Swindle, the rise in solar activity over the latter half of the 20th century was erroneously presented as perfectly matching the rise in global average temperatures.
Dr Lockwood said he was outraged when he saw the documentary, because of the way the programme-makers used graphs of temperature rises and sunspot cycles that were cut off in the 1980s, when the two trends went in the opposite direction.
'The trouble is that the theory of solar activity and climate was being misappropriated to apply to modern-day warming. The sceptics were taking perfectly good science and bringing it into disrespect,' Dr Lockwood said.
The Royal Society said yesterday: 'There is a small minority which is seeking to confuse the public on the causes of climate change. They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day.'
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