Hunt for the Red October: The Arctic Sequel -An Update

With the warming of the polar caps, it should comes as no surprise to see Canada, Denmark, Russia and the U.S. all jockeying for position at the extreme north of our planet for access to the regions vast natural resources.

Recently we’ve seen Russian exploratory vessels making their way to the Arctic to conduct underwater expeditions to ‘tread where no man has trod before’. Denmark subsequently went out to stake a claim on the underwater seabed near Greenland, and Canada is just trying to hold on to all that ice up top.

Monday August the 6th, saw the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy depart on a two month journey to survey the Arctic around, and well above, Alaska. Aboard the seven year old icebreaker which remains the newest in the U.S. Coast Guards fleet will be Larry Mayer, director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire, acting as lead scientists on the expedition.

The 420 feet long icebreaker will be able to successfully encounter ice up to 8 feet thick, and due back in Seattle in October, the team will hope to have determined the extent of the continental shelf north of Alaska. This trip, one of three made to map the shelf using an echo sounder, has been on the cards for months, according to Larry Mayer, but is still an attempt to specify just what underwater reserves America can claim for their own.

"We're basically just doing science," Mayer said in a recent interview, in response to Russian media claims that America is following in the wake of Russia to assert control over Arctic regions. But in a scene that is reminiscent of a comedic adventure he adds that "There's no flag-dropping on this trip,” one can almost see him trying to keep the reporters attention focused on him, while three “Three-Stooges” like crew members ferry a not so surreptitious American flag pole aboard the Healy.

The crew of 20 scientists aboard the Healy is made up of representatives from University of New Hampshire, University of Texas, University of Alaska, the National Ice Center in Suitland, Md., Scripps Institution, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and State Department. The latter’s superiors asserted that their representative was a geographer and member of an extended continental shelf task force.

They went on to say, that while a significant technological achievement, the planting of the titanium Russian flag on the seabed of the North Pole has no legal effect and did not prompt the participation of the State Department expert in the Healy cruise.

All the public announcements ring a little too loudly of one of the great Shakespearean quotes, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

In related and similarly sad news, William Chapman and colleagues at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana announced on the internet Thursday that the Arctic regions sea ice levels have plunged to an all time low.

"Today, the Northern Hemisphere sea ice area broke the record for the lowest recorded ice area in recorded history,” he said in a statement in the online publication 'The Cryosphere Today.' "The new record came a full month before the historic summer minimum typically occurs. There is still a month or more of melt likely this year. It is therefore almost certain that the previous 2005 record will be annihilated by the final 2007 annual minima closer to the end of this summer."

Pardon a jaded commentator’s perspective, but just possible there should be more work focused on what is happening above the sea level, rather than fighting over ways to further endanger what is below?

Posted by Josh Hill