Posted on 03/09/2002 8:15:44 AM PST by Trailer Trash
Arctic Summer Sea Lanes Open By 2015 Forecasts ONR http://www.spacedaily.com/news/arctic-02a.html
Washington - Feb 14, 2002 "Although recent terrorist events keep our minds occupied elsewhere in the world, what a navigable Arctic means for our national security is significant," says Dr. Dennis Conlon, Program Manager for Arctic Science at the Office of Naval Research. "Geographical boundaries, politics, and commerce changes would all become issues." In April 2001, the Office of Naval Research co-sponsored a meeting of Arctic subject matter experts from the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain in a preliminary attempt to address the capabilities that would be required for naval forces to operate in the Arctic. Their report has just been released, and it speaks to the national and strategic issues surrounding naval ship and aircraft operations in an ice-free Arctic, including policy, doctrine, and possible new systems and ship and aircraft designs. The potential implications of an ice-free Arctic are enormous. Both the Northern Sea Route (north of Russia) and the Northwest Passage (through the Canadian archipelago) provide far shorter routes from Europe to Asia, though both routes are claimed to be through national waters. An increased level of transnational activity might give rise to adversarial action, international criminal and terrorist elements, and environmental challenges. Disappearance of the ice canopy would eliminate a haven now provided to submarines, and the acoustic environment would drastically change. An ecological disruption due to climate and habitat changes would affect marine mammal populations, and this in turn would affect indigenous peoples. One significant conclusion was reached in the report: the U.S. Navy must rely on bilateral and multinational alliances, especially with Canada and Russia, in order to deal effectively and fairly with an ice-free Arctic. Ensuring access and stabilizing the global commons would be the most overriding reason for increased operations in what would remain a very hostile environment, ice or no ice. Naval Ice Center, the Oceanographer of the Navy, and the Arctic Research commission. Related Links Icelandic Weather System Helps Decipher Arctic Ice Puzzle Last Mid Ocean Ridge Explored
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Anchorage Daily News 03-09-2002
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Even more reason to increase greenhouse emissions now! Stop Global Cooling.
Spoken like a true oil industry employee!
Buy some Northern Canadian farmland now!!
We'll pave the moon later.
Just in time for me to take a retirement sailboat trip to the east coast!
Haven't seen that in Fairbanks. It's been fairly dry for a couple years. There might be 18" of snow on the ground, total all winter. And we are headed into the dry season, March through June; if it gets hot in June [80] we would expect a lot of smoke from those tundra fires, or maybe the whole state will finally burn down.
Opening the Bering Strait year-round would cut down the influx of nomadic hunters, excepting those who drive up the Alaska Highway.
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