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The Arctic is a hot topic this year with record ice melt in Greenland, Arctic Sea Ice set to melt to a record low in the coming weeks, the Canadian government approving a $142m research facility in the high Arctic and undertaking military exercises, a search being launched for ancient Arctic exploration vessels,and on Friday 24th August Greenpeace activists stormed a Russian oil rig!
Why all the fuss? Is Arctic Sovereignty a political issue that could lead to war? Is there really an Arctic gold rush, black gold that is, or are we years away from Arctic drilling? What are the consequences of Earth's air conditioner hiccuping? How may the world change if this continues? Let me provide a little insight into these questions.
In recent years the Arctic has been of great interest to governments and energy and mineral exploration, particularly as the Northwest Passage was sailed through in the summer in 2008, and record sea ice melt in 2007 was followed by near record melt in 2008, only to be surpassed as early as next week given current trends. China successfully sent it's first ship across the Arctic Ocean, an icebreaker named Xuelong, in August 2012. Experts claim there are masses of oil and gas beneath the Arctic ocean where the continental shelf extends for hundreds of miles north from Russia and Canada. There is a rush to find where the resources are and stake claim to it before fleets of icebreakers, tankers, tugs and supply ships are built to aid in the construction of massive oil platforms that can withstand huge swells, high winds, and standing up to the constantly shifting sea ice, and of course massive icebergs carved from northern glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet.
As for Arctic Sovereignty, most of the oil and gas resources are located within the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone that extends seaward from every country as prescribed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Image courtesy of BBC News
Who is right or wrong will not matter, sustainable and environmentally responsible development of the Arctic's natural resources is possible but it will require strong political will and the involvement of scientists to study the current conditions and impacts before the 'Arctic rush' begins. Northern communities are enthralled by the prospect of large companies bringing money and jobs to their areas, but before the riches arrive agreements will need to be reached regarding royalties, profit sharing and land leases. Hopefully some money will be transferred to the Inuit communities surrounding the Arctic and not head directly south.
In reality, the likelihood that Arctic oil will make a large contribution to oil supplies is many years away. In Russia massive platforms are being constructed, one gas platform will be 400ft across and weigh 100,000 tonnes (500,000 tonnes once filled with ballast) and will sit in the Shtokman field. As a side note, the platform Greenpeace stormed is an oil platform to be positioned in a region farther east, the Prirazlomnoye field. Russia are full steam ahead in construction of platforms and pipelines for their Arctic ambitions, whilst Norway and Alaska are well behind, with Canada and Denmark lagging even further behind in terms of exploration and development.
Photo Credit: M. JAKOBSSON/IODP. As featured in the following Article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7093/full/441579a.html
Huge ice breakers as in the photo above, the biggest in the world included, are dwarfed by the mass of ice in the Arctic Ocean and must circle oil and gas platforms to break up the ice as it moves toward them, to avoid a collision and at worst, total collapse. These vessels are an expensive endeavour for any government or large corporation, and an essential defence against the moving pack ice. Yet another factor that will slow construction and development in the Arctic due to build times and cost. Nobody has built an oil or gas platform as far north as the Russians are starting to operate. The remoteness of the platforms is a danger if accidents happen, and the farther you are from the land the more volatile are the seas. It will take time for the Arctic to become a large supplier of oil and gas, longer than mass media portrays, but have no doubt Russia will be the pioneer of Arctic energy resources.
Earth's Great Air Conditioner
The Arctic ecosystem provides a fundamental service to the planet. It moderates temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere; the millions of square miles of sea ice covering the Arctic ocean reflect huge amounts of thermal infra-red radiation back into space, keeping the Earth several degrees cooler than it would be without the snow and ice caps. Without the highly reflective sea ice and snow covering Arctic regions temperatures in the oceans and on land increase, with the increase on land being greater due to the low albedo of vegetation versus open water (in the Arctic's high latitudes due to the low angle the radiation strikes the surface). The melting of sea ice will not have a profound effect on sea levels, but will act as a positive feedback to any rise seen. Due to the thermal expansion of water, a darker northern ocean will absorb more heat, which will in turn melt more ice, particularly in Greenland. Greenland holds a lot of ice, 3 or more miles thick in places, and reports show that 97% of the ice sheet is currently thawing, smashing the previous 55% record, and it happened in days:
"...images, snapped by three satellites, showed that about 40 percent of the ice sheet had thawed at or near the surface on July 8; just days later, on July 12, images showed a dramatic increase in melting with thawing across 97 percent of the ice sheet surface." - Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor, July 24th 2012. Link: http://www.livescience.com/21809-record-greenland-ice-melt.html.
The now infamous infographic illustrating the astonishing pace at which Greenland started it's record melt. CREDIT: Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory.
When Greenland melts, water that was previously held in ice, and not already sitting in the water, is added to the oceans resulting in sea level rise and triggering another feedback loop, where the darker land will absorb more solar radiation than before, warming the planet, which will further increase sea level via thermal expansion.
Now, this will happen in less than the blink of an eye on a geologic time scale, but it will take a couple of years for the sea levels to rise because it takes a lot of energy to the heat water (water has a very high heat capacity). If we try to act once we detect this happening, it will be irreversible and slowing down the process will be extremely difficult. Signs like the huge thaw of Greenland this summer indicate this is the best time to consider appropriate action and act on it quickly, rather than the political tip-toeing we have seen since Copenhagen in 2009.
The impacts a changing Arctic will have are not limited to those of climatic and oceanic nature; the entire (fragile) Arctic ecosystem may change like we have never seen before in human history. New species will enter the Arctic Ocean from the south as the waters warm, thus increasing the competition for food and habitat with the already present Arctic fauna and flora. Any change in the ecosystem will have a profound impact on Arctic fishing industries, and the traditional culture and lifestyle of the Inuit in northern communities. Already they have to travel farther to reach the whales and seals they hunt, as the animals follow the retreating ice each summer.
On land vegetation will start to move north, with lichen being replaced by grasses and shrubs, with trees to eventually follow, a slow process that may take decades but long term it will increase warming further and decrease snow cover within the Arctic circle. However, one of the largest concerns on land and beneath the ocean is the thawing of permafrost, as the ground thaws the ground rots and once the top layer of soil has thawed the pungent gas formed in decomposition, methane, is released into the atmosphere, and methane hydrates are released from the thawing sea bed.
How big of an impact can thawing permafrost have?
Consider this:
"Permafrost underlies 20-25% of Earth's land area, including about 99% of Greenland, 80% of Alaska, 50% of Russia, 40-50% of Canada and 20% of China." - The Canadian Encylcopedia.
That's not including the methane hydrates beneath the Arctic Ocean.
Now, add in the fact that Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, and traps several times more heat than Carbon Dioxide can (despite it's shorter residency in the atmosphere), and you have rapid climate forcing. One estimate of how much Carbon is in the permafrost comes to 970 gigatons, to put that in perspective, there are about 730 gigatons of Carbon currently in the atmosphere, enough to take the average temperature of the planet from 15 Celsius to 22 Celsius (Anderson, 2009).
Closing thoughts
Considering all of the changes mentioned above (which are by no means exhaustive as there are some things we cannot predict, and current changes we don't understand) the Arctic as we know it is not just under threat but a critically endangered ecosystem. The 'New Arctic' will arrive by the end of the century assuming all current trends continue without action, nobody knows what it will look like but it won't be as white as before. The Arctic system is complex and dynamic, but whether or not it can respond to such quick changes fuelled by a relentless warming trend remains to be seen. I doubt it can, the changes made now may trigger a deeper Ice Age than before in 10,000 years time, or things may go back to pre-industrial conditions as we respond and the Arctic system acts to balance itself within a couple of thousand years. One thing is for certain, it will change significantly in your lifetime.
This post was inspired by the book "After The Ice" by Alun Anderson, which can be found on Amazon.ca here.
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