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Posted on 02/27/2008 9:55:09 AM PST by gallaxyglue
Arctic Meltdown The Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming Scott G. Borgerson The Arctic Ocean is melting, and it is melting fast. This past summer, the area covered by sea ice shrank by more than one million square miles, reducing the Arctic icecap to only half the size it was 50 years ago. For the first time, the Northwest Passage -- a fabled sea route to Asia that European explorers sought in vain for centuries -- opened for shipping. Even if the international community manages to slow the pace of climate change immediately and dramatically, a certain amount of warming is irreversible. It is no longer a matter of if, but when, the Arctic Ocean will open to regular marine transportation and exploration of its lucrative natural-resource deposits.
Global warming has given birth to a new scramble for territory and resources among the five Arctic powers. Russia was the first to stake its claim in this great Arctic gold rush, in 2001. Moscow submitted a claim to the United Nations for 460,000 square miles of resource-rich Arctic waters, an area roughly the size of the states of California, Indiana, and Texas combined. The UN rejected this ambitious annexation, but last August the Kremlin nevertheless dispatched a nuclear-powered icebreaker and two submarines to plant its flag on the North Pole's sea floor. Days later, the Russians provocatively ordered strategic bomber flights over the Arctic Ocean for the first time since the Cold War. Not to be outdone, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced funding for new Arctic naval patrol vessels, a new deep-water port, and a cold-weather training center along the Northwest Passage. Denmark and Norway, which control Greenland and the Svalbard Islands, respectively, are also anxious to establish their claims.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignaffairs.org ...
Artic?.........They have melted paintings?......
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I thought all the ice came back this winter.
And now its the largest its been in 15 years.
One million square miles? Maybe if the temperature was 33ºF for an entire year.
Not only did all of the ice come backer this winter, there is more than normal..and it’s thickening. Satellite images show a Northern Hemisphere with more ice and snow than has ever been recorded by satellite, dating back to 1966.
The Arctic ice has already returned with a vengeance, with more coverage than there has been in years.
Yesterday's news isn't any more palatable than yesterday's sushi.
It did and it’s actually thicker than it was at this time last year.
“Even if the international community manages to slow the pace of climate change immediately and dramatically, a certain amount of warming is irreversible.”
Cute, in one short phrase, he allows for the warming to end, the cooling to begin and still remain cocksure that it will warm again and maintain that it was merely recess time.
All of nature strives for equilibrium over time; global warming demands the alteration of time itself.
Well....the CFR...and its publication Foreign Affairs is on the Globalist Whoring bandwagon
Should expect that from a liberal globalist organization
What we need to do is assign the Marxist socialists their own continent and see how they do. Wait! Hasn't that already been tried?
If global warming was a real problem, we would also see discussions of real solutions. Like this:
If Greenland melted down completely, 88% of the excess water produced could be contained by flooding the uninhabited Qatarra Depression in northwest Egypt, producing thousands of miles of valuable lakefront property, generating electrical power as water flowed from the Medditerranean to the depression and potentially turning much of the surrounding Sahara Desert into arable land.
It took Greenland 18,000 years to accumulate as much ice as it has now. How long do you think it will take it to melt?
Near LaPorte, IN overnight 2.6 inches of global warming fell in only 45 minutes as part of a lake effect event.
This article is seriously out of date. It’s been one of the coldest winters on record up there.
Is gore ghost writting again?????
This guy gets his facts from Al Gore.
Verifiable records of Arctic ice go back only 35 years, so his statement about a 50 year record low is bunk.
The “fabled” Northwest Passage was navigated two times between 1890-1910, by the much less durable ships of that period. The Passage was NOT - repeat NOT - completely navigable in 2006 by ships with exponentially better technology.
Where are the fact checkers at “Foreign Affairs?”
It is a shame that a former Coast Guard Officer is in the “I lie for Green†business. The Arctic ice is the largest in many years this winter and if all goes as it is now going it will start to move the Canadians out in the next 20 to 50 years as the ice flows south.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/southern_hemisphere_ice_cover_remains_well_above_normal
Fact checkers? Fact checkers?! Don't need no stinkin' fact checkers>
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