Vast new cracks discovered in Arctic ice
This BBC story has some great visuals (and some questionable bluescreening), but fails to address the real question: how much will my rent go up when my house, currently ten blocks from the river, becomes waterfront property?
From the article:
“We had 23% less (sea ice) last year than we’ve ever had, and what’s happening to the ice shelves is part of that picture.”
It’s worth referencing the Scott Borgerson piece from the March/April Foreign Affairs on the economic and trade implications of an Arctic that could see ice free summers as soon as 2013.
Quoting at length:
The U.S. Senate has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the leading international treaty on maritime rights, even though President George W. Bush, environmental nongovernmental organizations, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard service chiefs, and leading voices in the private sector support the convention. As a result, the United States cannot formally assert any rights to the untold resources off Alaska’s northern coast beyond its exclusive economic zone — such zones extend for only 200 nautical miles from each Arctic state’s shore — nor can it join the UN commission that adjudicates such claims. Worse, Washington has forfeited its ability to assert sovereignty in the Arctic by allowing its icebreaker fleet to atrophy. The United States today funds a navy as large as the next 17 in the world combined, yet it has just one seaworthy oceangoing icebreaker — a vessel that was built more than a decade ago and that is not optimally configured for Arctic missions. Russia, by comparison, has a fleet of 18 icebreakers. And even China operates one icebreaker, despite its lack of Arctic waters. Through its own neglect, the world’s sole superpower — a country that borders the Bering Strait and possesses over 1,000 miles of Arctic coastline — has been left out in the cold.
The thawing of vast tracts of arctic ice may ironically lead to territorial and shipping disputes between the U.S. and Russia in the coming decades with a chilling effect (har!) on our mutual relations - if we ever get around to ratifying the UNCLOS so we can legally make territorial claims on this resource rich part of our coastline.