CQR Future of the Arctic - SAGE Publications · Future of the Arctic THE ISSUES W hen scientists...

Future of the ArcticCan the region’s resources be safely tapped?

Global interest in the Arctic is rising as climate

change causes Arctic sea ice to melt at record

rates. The receding ice offers access to the region’s

abundant oil, gas and mineral deposits and could

provide shorter shipping routes between the Atlantic and Pacific

oceans. Many nations also want to fish the region’s increasingly

ice-free waters. However, many observers say uncontrolled Arctic

development could damage fragile ecosystems and communities

already under serious pressure. Others say the United States is not

paying enough attention to the Arctic and has not set detailed

priorities for the region. The Obama administration supports energy

production in Arctic Alaska, including offshore oil and gas drilling,

but Shell Oil suffered widely publicized setbacks last year with its

operations in Alaskan waters. Now critics want to bar such projects,

but the energy industry and Alaska officials say Arctic oil and gas

reserves can be tapped responsibly.

Rapidly melting Arctic ice is providing newopportunities for shipping, fishing and access to theregion’s rich mineral resources. But uncoordinateddevelopment could have serious impacts on the

environment and native communities, many observerswarn. Above, an iceberg rises out of the water off

Qaqortoq, Greenland.

CQ Researcher • Sept. 20, 2013 • www.cqresearcher.comVolume 23, Number 33 • Pages 789-812

RECIPIENT OF SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AWARD FOR

EXCELLENCE � AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SILVER GAVEL AWARD

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THE ISSUES ....................791

BACKGROUND ................797

CHRONOLOGY ................799

CURRENT SITUATION ........803

AT ISSUE........................805

OUTLOOK ......................806

BIBLIOGRAPHY ................810

THE NEXT STEP ..............811

THISREPORT

Published by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. www.cqresearcher.com

790 CQ Researcher

THE ISSUES

791 • Should the U.S. Senate rat-ify the U.N. Convention onthe Law of the Sea?• Does oil production bene-fit Alaska Natives?• Should the United Statesbuild an Arctic deepwaterport?

BACKGROUND

797 Looking NorthExplorers searched NorthAmerican Arctic waters for aroute to the Pacific Ocean.

797 Alaska’s ResourcesGeologists discovered oil onAlaska’s North Slope in 1968.

801 Arctic WarmingScientists detected rising Arctictemperatures and shrinkingsea ice.

CURRENT SITUATION

803 Outside InterestsChina and other non-Arcticnations show strong interestin the region.

804 Drilling on HoldShell Oil ran into troubledrilling offshore in theAlaskan Arctic.

804 Displaced TownsAlaska Native villages arethreatened by erosion andflooding.

OUTLOOK

806 Changes and OpportunitiesMelting sea ice allows explo-ration of Arctic resources.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

792 Arctic Thaw Will CreateNew Shipping RoutesSea lanes could open duringsummer.

793 Melting Arctic Sea IceLast September’s Arctic seaice cover measured a recordlow.

796 Arctic Holds Large Oiland Natural Gas ReservesA fifth of the world’s poten-tial oil and natural gas is inthe Arctic.

799 ChronologyKey events since 1867.

800 Warming Arctic HasRepercussions ElsewhereMelting ice affects weather,ocean levels in other regions.

802 Arctic and Antarctic ArePoles ApartBoth are cold and remote,but they differ.

805 At Issue:Should the United States sus-pend Arctic offshore drilling?

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

809 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

810 BibliographySelected sources used.

811 The Next StepAdditional articles.

811 Citing CQ ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

FUTURE OF THE ARCTIC

Cover: Getty Images/Joe Raedle

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Sept. 20, 2013 791www.cqresearcher.com

Future of the Arctic

THE ISSUESWhen scientists from

the National Ocean-ic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA) re-leased last year’s annual re-port card on the environmentalstate of the Arctic, it showeddrastic changes occurring. Newrecords had been set for lowsnow cover, smaller sea icecoverage, more extensive melt-ing, for a longer duration, ofGreenland’s ice sheets, andhigher temperatures in per-mafrost (perennially frozensubsoil). 1

For more than a decadescient i f ic s tudies haveshown that global climatechange is altering the Arcticmore rapidly than the Earthas a whole. 2 (See sidebar,p. 800.) And those changeshave far-reaching effects.Some studies have found

that Arctic warming is chang-ing the polar jet stream, a strongwind current that blows fromwest to east across the North-ern Hemisphere. The jet streamis becoming “wavier,” studiesshow, bending into steep curvesthat trap weather fronts in placeand cause extreme hot, coldand wet weather episodes in the Unit-ed States and Europe. And melting Arc-tic ice increasingly contributes to risingsea levels, scientists say.“Both of these trends are very clear-

ly linked to Arctic warming,” says JamesMcCarthy, a professor of biologicaloceanography at Harvard Universityand member of the U.S. Arctic ResearchCommission, an expert panel that ad-vises Congress and the president onArctic research policy and findings.The region inside the Arctic Circle

(a line circling the globe at 66 degrees,

33 minutes North latitude) covers about5.5 million square miles, including theArctic Ocean and parts of Canada, theUnited States, Russia, Norway, Greenland(controlled by Denmark), Iceland, Swe-den and Finland. 3 Sea ice covers muchof the Arctic Ocean, but warming hasreduced it sharply during the summermonths. In 1980, sea ice covered ap-proximately 2.8 million square miles atits yearly minimum point, which occursin September. By 2012 the Septemberice cover had decreased by half, to1.4 million square miles. 4 Scientists

predict that within severaldecades the Arctic Oceancould be nearly ice-free dur-ing the summer months. 5

Shrinking sea ice hasspurred widespread global in-terest in the Arctic. The changescould open new, shorter glob-al shipping routes. 6 Accord-ing to the U.S. Geological Sur-vey, the Arctic holds largeundiscovered, recoverable oiland gas reserves, much of itoffshore. 7 The Arctic also holdsmineral riches, such as theworld’s largest deposit of zincat the Red Dog Mine in north-west Alaska. Arctic fisheries,which have yet to be surveyedin detail, could provide im-portant, new food sources.As the Arctic becomes

more accessible and as scien-tists learn more about the im-pact of Arctic warming, thisremote region is attractingnew worldwide attention. Na-tions thousands of miles to thesouth are seeking access tothe Arctic Council, an interna-tional forum that promotes co-operation and coordinationamong the eight countries bor-dering the Arctic region. Andthose nations are paying greaterattention to developing andprotecting the Arctic. 8

“[T]he consequences of our nations’decisions don’t stop at the 66th parallel,”said Secretary of State John Kerry. En-vironmental challenges in the Arctic— including ocean acidification, pol-lution, melting sea ice, at-risk speciesand uncontrolled development — alsoaffect Arctic nations’ economies, secu-rity and international stability, Kerrysaid. 9

Despite Kerry’s words, many polit-ical experts say the U.S. governmentis not devoting enough resources toArctic issues. For instance, the United

BY JENNIFER WEEKS

Getty Im

ages

/Barcroft Med

ia/L

ouise Murray

Tourists photograph walruses near Hall Beach, an Inuitcommunity in Nunavut, in Canada’s Arctic. Global

warming has significantly reduced the amount of sea icein the Arctic, raising concerns about the large animalsthat rely on it to forage, rest and reproduce, including

polar bears, walruses and seals. Longer ice-freeseasons can push these animals into new habitats,

reducing their numbers.

792 CQ Researcher

States is the only Arctic nation thatdoes not have an ambassador-level se-nior official managing regional poli-cies. Instead, Arctic issues are direct-ed by several lower-level workinggroups. Many experts interpret this asa sign that U.S. leaders do not regarddevelopments in the Arctic as criticalto the national interest.

However, the Obama administra-tion recently has begun to show moreinterest in the region. In May the WhiteHouse released a National Strategy forthe Arctic Region that identified threemain priorities:• National security: Ensure that

U.S. vessels and aircraft can operatethroughout the region, develop new

infrastructure and capabilities, andsupport lawful commerce.• Conservation and stewardship:

Protect the Arctic environment, conserveits resources, and increase understandingof the Arctic through scientific research.• International cooperation: Use

bilateral partnerships and internation-al organizations to protect the Arcticenvironment, promote shared prosper-ity, and enhance regional security.The strategy document said the Unit-

ed States envisions “an Arctic regionthat is stable and free of conflict,where nations act responsibly . . . andwhere economic and energy resourcesare developed in a sustainable man-ner that also reflects the fragile envi-ronment and the interests and culturesof indigenous peoples.” 10

Some experts say the policy lacksdetail. “It was a missed opportunity,”says Heather Conley, director of theEurope program at the Center for Strate-gic and International Studies (CSIS), aWashington think tank. “This strategyreaffirms basic U.S. interests, but itdoesn’t advance policy. How much orhow little will the United States devel-op its own Arctic?”But Alaska politicians welcomed a

statement of U.S. regional priorities.“Finally! It’s about time that the ad-ministration acknowledged the impor-tance of a strong presence in the Arc-tic,” said a statement issued by U.S.Rep. Don Young, a Republican. 11

U.S. Arctic policy is heavily af-fected by relations between Alaskaand the federal government, whichcontrols approximately two-thirds ofthe state’s land area and a large shareof its resources, set aside under theAlaska National Interest Lands andConservation Act of 1980. 12 Alaskapoliticians often argue they know howto develop their state responsibly butare hampered by federal limits, suchas a longstanding ban on oil drillingin the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.“Back home it feels like we’re row-

ing as hard as we can, and here in


Sources: Laurence C. Smith and Scott R. Stephenson, “New Trans-Arctic shipping routes navigable by mid-century,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 26, 2013, vol. 110 no. 13, www.pnas.org/content/110/13/E1191.full.pdf+html; and “Towns and Industrial Activities in the Arctic,” GRID-Arendal, www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/towns-and-industrial-activities-in-the-arctic_cfe8.

Melting Ice Will Create New Shipping Routes

The Arctic is warming at twice the rate as the rest of the world, increasing the seasonal melting of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean. By midcentury, new, shorter commercial shipping routes could open across the Arctic Ocean during summer months, greatly reducing shipping costs between Europe and Asia.

Potential Ice-free Shipping Lanes Across the Arctic

Be

au

f or t S

ea

ChukchiSea

EastSiber ian

Sea

LaptevSea

Norwegian Sea

Foxe Basin

Bering Sea

Sea ofOkhotsk

Da

vis

Str

ait

R U S S I AArctic Circle

B a f f i nB a y

N o r t h P o l e

SWEDEN

G R E E N L A N D(Denmark)

C A N A D A

A L A S K A (USA)

Gulf ofAlaska

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

FINLAND

S v a l b a r d (Norway)

KaraSea

BarentsSea

GreenlandSea

A R C T I C

O C E A NFramStra i t

Den

mar

k S

trai

t

NORWAY

ICELAND

Northern Sea RouteNorthwest PassageFuture central Arctic shipping route


Washington people are throwing outsea anchors,” said Republican Lt. Gov.Mead Treadwell in July, describingAlaskans’ frustration with federal reg-ulations that restrict natural resourcedevelopment. 13

Building new infrastructure to har-vest Alaska’s Arctic resources will beextremely expensive and probablywill involve complex negotiations overfunding between federal, state and pri-vate entities. Constructing a pipelineto ship Alaskan gas to market, for in-stance, could cost up to $65 billion ata time when new gas sources in thelower 48 states have drastically cut theprice of natural gas. 14 Roads, portsand new icebreaking ships will alsocost hundreds of millions or even bil-lions of dollars. 15

Others say rules for managing theArctic should come first. “Melting seaice is opening up shipping routes, andwe don’t have international law inplace to handle that increased traffic,”says Kevin Harun, Arctic program di-rector at Pacific Environment, a con-servation advocacy group based inSan Francisco, Calif.The International Maritime Organi-

zation, a United Nations organizationthat regulates global shipping, is de-veloping a mandatory Polar Code thatwould regulate ships operating in theArctic and Antarctic. It would set stan-dards, such as minimum engine powerand required survival gear, to operatein extreme zones. It also would regulateenvironmental practices, such as wastedisposal at sea.“We need a Polar Code in place

with strong environmental provisionsto manage growth in shipping,” saysHarun. “And we need a vision for theArctic that protects communities, in-digenous people and the environ-ment. I don’t think the United Statessees itself as an Arctic nation yet. Thegeneral public doesn’t know what isat stake.”In a high-profile test case last year,

the Interior Department allowed Royal

Dutch Shell to conduct exploratorydrilling for oil and gas off Alaska’s Arc-tic coast. Shell had numerous operatingproblems, including weather delays anda drilling rig that ran aground in south-ern Alaska as it was being towed toSeattle for maintenance.An Interior Department review

found that Shell’s program lacked keycomponents when it began operations,and the company had not managedcontractors effectively. The depart-ment directed Shell to develop moredetailed plans for drilling operationsbefore it returned to the Arctic, andin February Shell suspended Arcticoperations for 2013. 16 Shell leadershave not said whether they plan toreturn to the Arctic in 2014. Earlierthis month the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency fined the company$1.1 million for air pollution releasesduring its 2012 operations. 17

Norwegian energy company Statoiland American company ConocoPhillipsalso have postponed plans to drill inthe Alaskan Arctic until they see whatkind of documentation federal regu-lators require Shell to produce. 18

In the wake of Shell’s difficulties,environmentalists are calling on theObama administration to suspend allArctic Ocean oil and gas activities “forthe foreseeable future,” and to “care-fully reassess whether and how off-shore drilling in the Arctic Ocean ispossible or prudent.” 19 Some indige-nous Arctic groups want to ban off-shore drilling on the Arctic shelf com-pletely. 20 But exploration is movingforward in Russian, Canadian and Nor-wegian Arctic waters, and the Obamaadministration supports Arctic offshoreenergy production. Industry leadersand Alaska politicians say Arctic oiland gas can be developed safely. (See“At Issue,” p. 805.)As state and federal officials, sci-

entists and advocacy groups debateU.S. priorities in a changing Arctic,here are some issues they are con-sidering:

Melting Arctic Sea Ice

The Arctic’s sea ice has been shrinking for several decades as a result of climate change. In 2012, the minimum cover of sea ice, which occurs in September, was about half the average recorded over the past 30 years for that month. Some scientists predict that within several decades the Arctic could be ice-free in summer.

Sources: Martin Jeffries, et al., “The Arctic Report Card,” www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/star/documents/meetings/Ice2013/dayOne/Jeffries.pdf; and “Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis,” National Snow and Ice Data Center, 2013, http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/.

Minimum Arctic Sea Ice

September

1980

September

2012

Average minimum sea ice extent for past 30 years

794 CQ Researcher

Should the U.S. Senate ratify theU.N. Convention on the Law ofthe Sea?As Arctic sea ice shrinks, adjoining

nations are making plans to developthe region’s large, untapped oil and gasresources. More than 400 oil and gasfields already have been developed onland north of the Arctic Circle in Russia,Canada and Alaska that are estimatedto contain about 240 billion barrels ofoil and natural gas. The U.S. GeologicalSurvey estimates that the Arctic con-tains an additional 90 billion barrelsof oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natur-al gas and 44 billion barrels of naturalgas liquids, but about 84 percent of itlies offshore where development is morerisky and expensive than on land. 21

But before energy companies evenconfront harsh Arctic Ocean operat-ing conditions, they could face a po-litical obstacle. The United States isthe only major industrialized nationthat has not ratified the United Na-tions Convention on the Law of theSea (UNCLOS). The 1982 treaty gov-erns use of the world’s oceans, in-cluding activities such as mining anddrilling for oil and gas beyond a na-tion’s 200-mile Exclusive EconomicZone. * Currently 166 nations have rati-fied the treaty. 22

As a party to UNCLOS, the UnitedStates could claim resources that lieon its extended continental shelf —submerged areas of coast that stretchout beyond its 200-mile EEZ. Mostcontinental shelves that exist todaystretch out about 50 miles from shore,then drop sharply to the ocean floor.But in some areas, including the Arc-tic, the continental shelf extends forhundreds of miles. Most of the world’sfisheries are concentrated on conti-nental shelves, and offshore drillingtakes place in these zones, where water

depths are typically no more than oneto two miles. 23 UNCLOS member na-tions can submit claims to a commis-sion of experts, which makes bindingdecisions on the outer limits of na-tions’ extended continental shelves.“The United States’ biggest econom-

ic interest in UNCLOS is the legal guar-antee to enormous oil, gas and miner-al resources in the Arctic on the extendedcontinental shelf. Those resources werenot previously accessible but may benow because of melting Arctic ice,” saysWashington lawyer John B. Bellinger III,who served as legal advisor to the StateDepartment from 2005-2009 underPresident George W. Bush.UNCLOS was opened for ratifica-

tion in 1982, but many industrializednations objected to provisions that re-stricted deep seabed mining — drillingfor valuable metals such as cobalt andzinc that lie beneath the ocean floorin international waters, beyond anynation’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Afterthe treaty was amended in 1994 toaddress these criticisms, nations in-cluding Japan, Germany, Italy, theUnited Kingdom, China and Russia be-came members.But conservative lawmakers in the

United States still argued against join-ing the UNCLOS treaty. Some said theUnited States could rely on customaryinternational law to protect its eco-nomic and navigation rights. Othersopposed a requirement to pay royaltieson profits from resources developed onthe extended continental shelf to the In-ternational Seabed Authority. This agency,established under UNCLOS, regulatesdeep seabed mining and has authorityto share royalties with UNCLOS mem-ber countries.The Senate Foreign Relations Com-

mittee voted in favor of ratifying UN-CLOS in 2004 and in 2007 and theBush administration urged its adop-tion, but the measure has never beenconsidered by the full Senate. In 2012then-Sen. John Kerry, who was com-mittee chairman but is now secretary

of State, held hearings on UNCLOS inwhich the Defense and State depart-ments, armed forces and business andindustry leaders strongly supportedratification. 24

“As advances in technology push usfarther from our shores and into areasof harsher climates, the potential forconflicts with other nations’ territorialclaims inevitably increases,” AmericanPetroleum Institute President Jack Ger-ard told the committee. “As such, thereis a more pressing need for certaintyand stability in the delineation of bound-aries. Accession to the convention wouldfulfill this need.” 25

But treaty opponents, such as StevenGroves, a fellow at the conservativeHeritage Foundation think tank, ar-gued that UNCLOS was still “a con-troversial and fatally flawed treaty.”Ratification “would result in a dan-gerous loss of American sovereignty.It would require the U.S. Treasury totransfer billions of dollars to an un-accountable international organization[the International Seabed Authority],”Groves said. After 34 Republican sen-ators said they opposed UNCLOS, Sen-ate leaders did not bring the treaty upbefore the full Senate, and opponentspronounced the treaty dead. 26

But UNCLOS advocates have notgiven up. The treaty has strong bi-partisan support in Alaska, where for-mer Republican Gov. Sarah Palin is onthe record in support. “[R]atificationhas been thwarted by a small groupof senators who are concerned aboutthe perceived loss of U.S. sovereign-ty,” then-Gov. Palin wrote in 2007. “Ibelieve that quite the contrary is thecase. If the U.S. does not ratify theconvention, we will be denied accessto the forum established by the inter-national community to adjudicate claimsto submerged lands in the Arctic.” 27

Alaska’s current senators, Democrat MarkBegich and Republican Lisa Murkowski,also support ratifying UNCLOS.“The national security and eco-

nomic arguments overwhelmingly favor


* The EEZ is the area extending out 200 milesfrom a nation’s coastline. Under UNCLOS, coastalnations have exclusive control over resourcesand research activities in their EEZs.


ratification, and we need to divorcethe treaty from politics as best as wecan,” says Bellinger. “Businesses also gotengaged [in the debate] in 2012, andif we can keep that effort up over thenext two years, I think it can be done.”

Does oil production benefit AlaskaNatives?Alaska’s estimated 120,000 Natives

make up 17 percent of the state’s popu-lation, and their numbers are growing.Most Alaska Natives live in rural vil-lages, either on the coast or along ariver. 28 Many rely on subsistence hunt-ing and fishing for at least part of theirlivelihood.Before Alaska became a state in

1959 and began producing oil in the1960s, Alaska Natives’ income, em-ployment and education levels wereamong the lowest in the United States.Although their status has improved,they still lag behind non-native Alaskansand other Americans. In 2007, 22 per-cent of Alaska Natives lived below thefederal poverty line, and their medi-an household income was $42,703,compared to $64,333 for all Alaskans.Thirteen percent of Alaska Nativehouseholds lacked plumbing. 29

Alaska Natives represent eight broadcultures. Each is composed of manyseparate languages and histories. 30

They hold diverse views about oil pro-duction. Some belong to Native cor-porations (see p. 798) that have in-vested in the industry or in companiesthat provide related services. 31 (In fact,every Alaskan, including Natives andnon-Natives, receives an annual divi-dend check based on the state’s oilrevenues. Over the past decade, theyearly dividend has averaged roughly$1,200 per person.) Other Natives sayoil production threatens valuable resources,such as the animals they hunt.More than 40 indigenous groups

from Arctic nations released a jointstatement last May criticizing Arctic oildevelopment. “Our culture and historycannot be bought off and replaced

with pipelines and drill rigs,” it de-clared. “The irresponsible practices ofoil companies everywhere have pro-vided us with more than enough ev-idence that oil spills in the Arctic seaswill be inevitable. At the same timethere are no effective and tested meth-ods to prevent or clean up oil spillsin the freezing Arctic seas.”The statement called for banning

offshore drilling in the Arctic, sus-pending onshore drilling and requir-ing native peoples’ consent for anyextractive projects on indigenous lands.Signatories included the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, which advocates fortribal governments across Alaska, andthe Akutan Tribal Council, based inthe Aleutian Islands. 32

But some Alaska Natives profit fromthe oil industry beyond the yearly div-idend. The North Slope Borough, whichincludes eight Inupiat Eskimo villages,collects millions of dollars annually inproperty taxes from the area’s land-based oil industry. The Arctic SlopeRegional Corp., which represents in-digenous populations in the area, re-ported $2.3 billion in gross revenuesin 2010 and paid $64.26 per share individends to shareholders. (For com-parison, only three of the 11 other re-gional Native corporations paid divi-dends greater than $20 per share, andfive paid less than $5 per share. 33)Native corporations were establishedunder the 1971 Alaska Native ClaimsSettlement Act to manage resourcesfor Alaska’s indigenous peoples. (SeeBackground, p. 798.)“Our tax base is based on oil and

gas. There’s nothing else there,” saidEdward Itta, a former mayor of thevast North Slope Borough, lobbyingin Washington, D.C., in 2012 for off-shore Arctic oil and gas development.Thanks to oil and gas revenues, hesaid, “We have schools, airports, roads,landfills, health facilities, hospitals, de-cent homes which keep warm nowand have light and power, whichwhen I grew up we didn’t have.” 34

Energy and power are central is-sues in rural Alaska, where a villagehousehold can spend up to $2,000 permonth on oil in the winter for heat,electricity and transportation. 35

“Alaska is a huge state, and most ofthe rivers drain to the western coast,”says Gwen Holdmann, director of theAlaska Center for Energy and Power inFairbanks. “Barging fuel from Valdez[where North Slope oil is shipped viathe Trans-Alaska Pipeline for process-ing] up to western Alaska would be avery long and complex route.” Instead,much of the oil used in-state is shippedfrom Seattle to regional distribution cen-ters in summer, then delivered to small-er and more remote communities. 36

Many advocates for Alaska’s Nativepeoples say the shipping arrangementis unsustainable. “If left unaddressed,skyrocketing energy costs threaten thevery survival of Alaska’s small, remoteNative communities,” the Alaska Fed-eration of Natives warned last year. 37

The organization argues that devel-oping affordable energy is “critical tothe survival” of Alaskan villages, andhas called on the federal government toboost energy assistance for low-incomehouseholds, promote renewable ener-gy on rural public lands in Alaska andconnect more rural villages to thepower grid. 38

Many rural Alaska communities areinvesting in renewable energy projects.“Fairbanks has the largest battery sys-tem in the United States, and severalAlaska communities run entirely on windenergy,” says Holdmann. Alaska alreadygenerates more than 20 percent of itselectricity from renewable sources (al-most entirely hydropower). 39 It also hasgood geothermal, wind, biomass andsolar resources.“Alaska’s cheap oil and gas resources

have already been developed, and arelimited,” says Holdmann. “We need totake advantage of the wealth we’veearned and develop infrastructure thatwill make a long-term difference forresidents.”

796 CQ Researcher

Should the United States buildan Arctic deepwater port?One of the main obstacles to in-

creasing shipping, energy productionor other activities in the Arctic is alack of infrastructure. Alaska’s Arcticcoast has no deepwater ports de-signed to serve large, heavily loadedships requiring water depths of atleast 30 feet.A deepwater port could support many

different activities. For example, the U.S.Coast Guard patrols Alaskan Arctic wa-ters during the summer but does notmaintain a forward base there. Duringthe summer of 2012, the Coast Guardsupervised a record number of com-mercial shipping and tourism vessels aswell as Shell’s drilling operations in theBeaufort and Chukchi seas. Yet its largestships had to refuel at Dutch Harbor inthe Aleutian Islands, more than 1,000miles from the North Slope. 40

A deepwater port could also supportinternational rescue operations in the re-gion. The United States has committed

to support search and rescue operationsin the Arctic, working with other Arcticnations under a binding legal agreementsigned in 2011. These missions may occuron land or sea. 41

Alaska officials strongly support con-struction of an Arctic deepwater port.Sens. Begich and Murkowski addedan amendment to the Water ResourcesDevelopment Act of 2013 (passed bythe Senate on May 15) that sets aside$100 million over 10 years to allowthe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers toplan, design and construct harbors inAlaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.“Whether we like it or not, the

shrinking Arctic sea ice is opening upa new frontier of maritime commerceand development,” said Begich. “Weneed to prepare for this increased ac-tivity, and a deepwater port will bevital for safety, commerce and pro-tection of the region.” 42

Last March Begich urged the Alas-ka legislature to pledge $2 billion instate funds for development of a deep-

water port, which he said would bematched by $3 billion in federal loanguarantees. The response was muted.“It’s a great program, a great idea, butwe don’t have $2 billion sitting around.So that’s going to be a stretch,” saidRepublican state Sen. Kevin Meyer, co-chair of the Alaska Senate’s FinanceCommittee. 43

The Corps of Engineers and Alas-ka’s Department of Transportation areconducting a three-year study, through2014, of potential locations for a deep-water Arctic port. 44 The two topchoices emerging are Nome, on theSeward Peninsula, and Port Clarence,the site of a small Coast Guard station70 miles northwest of Nome. Phase oneof the study suggests that building adeepwater port could be funded througha public-private partnership, but a sourcefor those funds has not been deter-mined.An Arctic deepwater port is likely to

be extremely expensive. “I can’t reallyimagine anything that would not costhundreds of millions of dollars,” saysOrson Smith, a professor of civil engi-neering at the University of Alaska. “AnyArctic port will have ice for some partof the year, and it’s very demanding tooperate machinery in winter there.”Moreover, says Smith, the continental

shelf slopes off very gradually under-water from Alaska’s Arctic coast, soextensive engineering would be re-quired to bring deep-draft ships closeto land. “You would have to eitherdredge a long channel across shallowland or build a long trestle out to deepwater, or some combination of thosetwo approaches,” he says.In Smith’s view, a deepwater port

may be needed, but the first phase ofthe study does not make that case. “Youneed to define the port’s operationaldetails. What kinds of ships will callthere and how often? What type ofcargo would need to be moved ashore?What do the Coast Guard and Navyneed for search and rescue? None ofthis was outlined in the report,” he says.


* Resources could not be attributed conclusively to either continent.

Sources: “Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle,” U.S. Geological Survey, 2008, http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3049/; and “Arctic Oil and Natural Gas Potential,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, Oct. 19, 2009, www.eia.gov/oiaf/analysispaper/arctic/.

Arctic Holds Large Oil and Natural Gas Reserves

About a fifth of the world’s potential oil and natural gas reserves lies north of the Arctic Circle. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 90 billion barrels of oil could be recovered from the region, enough to supply U.S. needs for about 12 years. About 65 percent of the oil is on the North American side of the Arctic. The Eurasian flank contains nearly three times as much natural gas as North America.

Estimated Undiscovered Oil and Natural Gas in Arctic, 2008

Crude Oil Natural Gas Natural Gas Total Resources Region (billion (trillion Liquids (billion Oil Equivalent barrels) cubic feet) barrels) (billion barrels)Eurasia 30.70 1,219.39 27.55 261.49North America 58.09 435.40 16.20 146.85Indeterminate* 1.20 13.87 .31 3.82Total 89.99 1,668.66 44.06 412.16


Harun of Pacific Environment hasurged state and federal agencies to ex-amine local needs more closely. “Thereare a lot of infrastructure needs in theregion, from oil spill response to col-lection facilities that will reduce incen-tives to dump waste in the ocean,” hesays. “This study zeroed in on criteriathat matter for energy and mining, butwe should be working with Arctic com-munities to determine what they want.”Indigenous communities, many of

whom hunt and fish along the coast,are alarmed by increasing ship trafficand concerned about potential impacts,such as fuel spills, ballast water andwaste discharges and ship collisions withwhales. At a hearing chaired by Sen.Begich last March, several representa-tives of indigenous groups called forbroad strategies, such as training coastalresidents to participate in emergencyresponse operations and providing re-ceivers and computers to enable coastalresidents to track ship traffic. 45

“There is no single port locationor, for that matter, response plan thatis going to fulfill the many needs fac-ing industry, government and residentsin the Arctic,” said Matt Ganley, vicepresident of the Bering Straits NativeCorporation. 46

BACKGROUNDLooking North

H umans have been exploring theArctic for millennia. The earliest

known human settlements above theArctic Circle, dating back nearly 40,000years, have been found in what is nowRussia. 47

During the most recent ice age, fromabout 28,000 B.C. to 18,000 B.C., glaci-ers covered much of northern Europeand part of Siberia, pushing humanssouth. After the glaciers retreated, no-

mads moved north again. Some crossedthe Bering land bridge from Asia to theNorth American Arctic between 14,000and 12,000 B.C. 48 Later, as northern lat-itudes warmed further, subsistence soci-eties developed in the Arctic regions.European explorers began venturing

north during the Middle Ages, estab-lishing colonies in Iceland, Greenlandand northern Russia. By 1500, shipsfrom England, France, Spain, Portugaland the Netherlands were sailing acrossthe Atlantic and mapping new traderoutes. Some explored the Arctic coastof North America in search of a North-west Passage connecting the Atlanticand Pacific oceans. France and Englandestablished colonies in Canada, whileRussia claimed Siberia and Alaska.The United States was a latecomer

to the Arctic. In 1867 it bought Alas-ka from Russia for $7.2 million. Thenew territory covered 375 million acres,twice as large as the original 13 coloniesand about three-quarters the size ofthe Louisiana Purchase. Alaska at thattime had only about 35,000 residents,nearly all of them members of in-digenous groups. 49

Critics argued that Alaska was afrozen wasteland and called the pur-chase “Seward’s Folly,” after Secretaryof State William H. Seward, who ne-gotiated the deal. Seward and other ex-pansionists who argued that the regioncontained valuable resources wouldeventually be vindicated in 1896, whenthe discovery of gold in Canada’s ad-jacent Yukon Territory triggered theKlondike Gold Rush. In 1899 prospec-tors found gold in Nome, on Alaska’sSeward Peninsula, and a year later theydiscovered the enormous Kennecottcopper mines in southeastern Alaska.Beginning in the 1860s, explorers

from many nations ventured into theArctic, seeking routes to the NorthPole through Greenland and the is-lands of northern Canada. News ac-counts portrayed Arctic explorers asrugged heroes, but the truth some-times was very different.

For example, American explorersRobert Peary and Matthew Henson bothfathered children with Inuit women. 50

Peary had the bodies of several Green-land natives who had died in an epi-demic removed from their graves andbrought to the United States, where hesold them to the American Museum ofNatural History as anthropological spec-imens. 51 He also traded a gun for sev-eral large pieces of a meteorite thatInuit in Greenland considered holy. Hiswife sold the pieces to the Smithson-ian for $40,000. 52

Nonetheless, explorers also made im-portant contributions, mapping manyArctic zones and reporting back on con-ditions there. In 1905 Norwegian ex-plorer Roald Amundsen completed thefirst successful navigation of the North-west Passage. Between 1905 and 1909Peary and his former friend and ship-mate, American explorer Frederick Cook,competed to be the first explorer to findthe North Pole — a difficult mission be-cause the pole was located on driftingsea ice, not on a fixed point of land.In 1909 Peary claimed to have reachedthe North Pole and through a concert-ed public relations campaign supplant-ed Cook’s claim, announced a weekearlier than Peary’s, to have reached itin 1908. (A reassessment of Peary’s claimin 1988 cast doubt on his achievements,and Cook’s claim remains unproven.) 53

Alaska’s Resources

B y 1900 it was clear that Alaskapossessed many valuable resources,

including fish, timber, minerals, coaland oil. Because Alaska was a territo-ry, not a state, Congress and the fed-eral government regulated its land useand other activities. But many Alaskansresented being governed from Wash-ington and demanded more local con-trol — a pattern that would becomeengrained in Alaskan politics. 54

From 1900 through the 1930s growthin the Alaska territory centered around

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logging, mining and fishing. Explorersfound oil and drilled wells at Katallaon the state’s southern coast startingin 1902. 55 But the industry did notdevelop on a large scale because thecost of transporting Alaskan oil to thelower 48 states made it too expensivecompared to cheaper oil from Texasand Oklahoma. Nonetheless, when theU.S. Geological Survey found oil alongAlaska’s north coast, President WarrenG. Harding set aside 23 million acresto establish Naval Petroleum ReserveNo. 4 (the U.S. Navy was converting

its ships from coal to oil). In 1976, thearea would be renamed the NationalPetroleum Reserve. 56

During World War II, Japanese forcesin the Pacific posed a threat to Alaska.In 1942 the Japanese bombed DutchHarbor, a naval facility in Alaska’sAleutian Islands. Japanese troops oc-cupied two other Aleutian islands, butU.S. and Canadian forces recaptured

them in 1943. To protect Alaska, the WarDepartment built military bases, airfieldsand naval stations across the territory.The military buildup swelled Alaska’spopulation from about 72,000 in 1940to more than 128,000 by 1950. 57

With the Cold War, Alaska took onnew strategic importance as a front lineof defense against possible nuclear at-tacks from Soviet long-range bombersand missiles coming over the NorthPole (the most direct route to the U.S.mainland). The Defense Departmentbuilt air defense systems and early-

warning radar sites across the territoryand expanded naval bases to track So-viet submarines in the North Pacific.In 1958 the Nautilus, the world’s first

nuclear-powered submarine, traveledunder sea ice to the North Pole, demon-strating that U.S. military power couldreach far into the Arctic. “[W]e couldbe right in [the Soviet Union’s] backyard, and there was nothing they

could do about it,” said Al Charette,the Nautilus’ sonar supervisor. 58 TheSoviet Union developed nuclear sub-marines a few years later.

Statehood and Oil Wealth

I n the 1950s, Alaska’s populationcontinued to grow, but infrastruc-ture development lagged behind, andthe federal government still controlledvirtually all Alaskan land. 59 Local politi-cians stepped up their lobbying forstatehood. In 1958 Congress voted toadmit Alaska as the 49th state, andPresident Dwight D. Eisenhower signedthe legislation in January 1959.With statehood, Alaska acquired

about 104 million acres of federal landand control over submerged lands upto three miles offshore. It also gainedauthority to manage the fish and wildlifeon its own lands. 60

Alaska Native groups, fearing theymight lose resources they had tradi-tionally depended on, filed claims tosecure their property rights. By the late1960s so many claims were pendingthat the Interior Department suspend-ed land transfers until the backlog couldbe resolved. Further impetus to addressland claims came in 1968 when geolo-gists discovered the huge Prudhoe Bayoil field on state land on Alaska’s NorthSlope. Moving oil from the North Slopeto markets would require a pipeline toports in southern Alaska, and the stateneeded rights-of-way across federal landsto build the pipeline.In 1971 Congress enacted the Alaska

Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA),which awarded Alaska Natives the rightto select 44 million acres of land, plusa cash settlement of nearly $962 millionfor lands they gave up. The law created13 regional corporations to own andmanage Native assets. Individual Nativeswere enrolled as shareholders in thecorporations and required to hold theirstock for 20 years. 61

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Shell Oil’s drilling rig, the Kulluk, ran aground off Sitkalidak Island, in the Gulf ofAlaska, while it was being towed to Seattle for maintenance in late December2012. No oil spilled, according to the Coast Guard. The rig was shipped to

Singapore for repairs in March. Vast quantities of undiscovered oil and natural gasare thought to lie in the Arctic, much of it offshore. In the wake of Shell’s difficulties,environmentalists urged the Obama administration to “carefully reassess whether

and how offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean is possible or prudent.”

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Chronology1860s-1960sNations explore Arctic for re-sources.

1867Russia sells Alaska to the UnitedStates for $7.2 million.

1905Norwegian explorer Roald Amund-sen navigates Northwest Passage.

1909U.S. explorer Robert Peary claimsto be first to reach the North Pole.

1922Oil exploration begins on Alaska’sNorth Slope.

1925Canada is first nation to claim terri-tory extending to North Pole.

1945President Harry S. Truman claimsjurisdiction over all resources onthe U.S. continental shelf.

1959Alaska becomes the 49th state.

1968Major oil and gas deposits are dis-covered in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay.

•

1970s-1980sAlaska’s oil industry developsquickly.

1971Congress passes the Alaska NativeClaims Settlement Act, transferring44 million acres to 13 Native re-gional economic development cor-porations.

1973U.N. conference convenes to write

a global treaty governing use ofthe oceans.

1977Trans-Alaska pipeline starts pumpingoil 800 miles from northern Alaskato the ice-free southern port ofValdez. . . . Inuit establish the InuitCircumpolar Council to representtheir interests. . . . Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika is thefirst ship to reach the North Pole.

1982U.N. adopts the Convention onthe Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) andopens it for ratification. Eventually166 nations, not including theUnited States, will ratify it.

1984Snohvit gas field is discovered inNorway’s Barents Sea.

1989The Exxon Valdez oil tanker runsaground in Alaska’s Prince WilliamSound, spilling 11 million gallonsof oil and contaminating over1,000 miles of shoreline.

•

1990s-PresentArctic nations seek a balancebetween cooperation and com-petition.

1994UNCLOS enters into force.

1999Canada establishes Nunavut Territoryin the north, comprising a fifth ofthe country, to restore partial sover-eignty to Canadian Inuit.

2001Russia becomes first Arctic nationto claim sovereignty over theNorth Pole, using a process set upunder UNCLOS.

2007The Northwest Passage is ice-freefor first time on record. . . . Russiaplants its flag on the North Poleseabed, galvanizing other Arctic na-tions into asserting their own sover-eignty. . . . U.S. Senate Foreign Rela-tions Committee approves UNCLOS,bringing it closer to ratification.

2008U.S. authorizes oil and gas explo-ration in Chukchi Sea. . . . Polarbear is listed as a threatenedspecies due to the decline of itssea ice habitat. . . . Arctic nationsagree to use UNCLOS to resolveArctic territorial claims. . . . U.S.and Canada begin collaborating onmapping the Arctic seabed to pur-sue continental shelf claims.

2009A federal fishery management councilvotes to close off fishing in AlaskanArctic waters to allow research onlocal fish stocks and the effects ofclimate change on the area.

2011Arctic Council member nations signbinding agreement to coordinatesearch and rescue operations.

2012Royal Dutch Shell attempts ex-ploratory drilling in the Beaufortand Chukchi seas but struggles inArctic conditions. . . . Norwegiancompany Statoil postpones plansto drill offshore exploratory wellsin the Alaskan Arctic.

2013U.S. and Chinese scientists predictice-free Arctic summers by mid-century. . . . Environmentalists callfor suspending Arctic offshoredrilling. . . . An Interior Departmentreview bans Shell offshore Arcticdrilling pending more detailedplans. . . . Obama administrationpublishes a U.S. Arctic strategy.

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Thousands of workers moved to Alas-ka in the 1970s and early ’80s to workon the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and in thestate’s booming oil industry. SouthernAlaska attracted most of the economicand population growth, but revenuesfrom North Slope oil enriched the en-

tire state. In 1982 the Alaska PermanentFund, a state-controlled sovereign wealthfund, began sending annual checks toresidents to return some oil and gasrevenues to Alaskans. 62

As the state grew, Alaska Natives ben-efited socially and economically. Between1970 and ’80 the number of Alaska Na-

tives completing high school rose from37 percent to 59 percent, and averagefamily income rose by 39 percent. How-ever, Native Alaskans were still poorer,less educated and less healthy than non-natives. A majority of Native Alaskanscontinued to live in rural areas, whereliving costs were higher and fewer so-


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The Arctic may be harsh and challenging, but it is alsoextremely sensitive to climate change. Rapid warmingin the vast region around the North Pole has greatly re-

duced the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice over the pastseveral decades, altering the region’s ecology. But the chang-ing climate in the Arctic also is having major impacts on weath-er and climate patterns far beyond the region.Since the mid-1960s, average annual air temperatures over

land in the Arctic have risen about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 de-grees Fahrenheit). Temperatures have increased twice as fastas those at lower latitudes — a phenomenon known as “Arc-tic amplification.” 1 Major reasons for the increase include:• Melting sea ice and snow cover on land. Snow and

ice reflect a large fraction of solar energy back into space. Butbare land and open water are darker, so they absorb moresunlight. In a vicious cycle that scientists call a positive feed-back loop, the warming Arctic temperatures melt more snowand ice, which in turn exposes more bare ground or oceanthat retains more of the sun’s heat, further increasing warming.• Black carbon (fine soot) emissions. Produced from

burning fossil fuels and biomass materials such as wood andcrop wastes, these pollutants are carried northward by windsfor thousands of miles. Often they collect in the Arctic, wherethey fall to the ground in rain and snow. The dark particlesabsorb, rather than deflect, solar energy, warming the sur-faces below. In 2009 NASA scientists estimated that black car-bon pollution accounted for up to half of recent Arctic warm-ing. 2 Last year, a study estimated that cutting black carbonand other short-lived pollutants could reduce warming in theArctic and the Himalayas by up to two-thirds over the nextseveral decades. 3

As sea ice melts and shrinks, food webs may be disrupted.Floating sea ice serves as the food base for Arctic ecosystems.Frozen seawater forms networks of ice crystals surrounded bysmall spaces filled with brine. Microscopic organisms (mainlyalgae) grow inside these brine channels. Tiny crustaceans andsmall plankton feed on the algae and in turn serve as foodfor larger organisms, such as fish and seals.Many large animals forage, rest and reproduce on sea ice,

including polar bears, walruses and seals, so longer ice-free

seasons can push these animals into new habitats, reducingtheir abundance. 4

Sea ice also protects coastal villages from storms. “When thesea is covered with ice, storms don’t create huge waves thatpound the shore or winds that blow inland,” says Orson Smith,a professor of civil engineering at the University of Alaska.“Without sea ice, you get storm surges that push water up ontothe coasts, as we see in other parts of the United States dur-ing hurricanes and other large coastal storms.”Climate change is also melting permafrost (perennially frozen

ground, usually starting a few centimeters below the surface)in many parts of Alaska. “When that happens, building foun-dations and roads sink,” says Smith.Climate change in the Arctic has implications for weather else-

where. Two 2012 studies found that Arctic warming was slow-ing the polar jet stream — powerful winds that blow at highspeeds from west to east across North America at the point wherecold polar air meets warmer air from lower latitudes. When thejet stream slows, it starts to move in wavelike north/south pat-terns. These waves carry warm air into the Arctic and push coldArctic air further south. They also stall weather systems for ex-tended periods of time, producing longer warm, cool and wetperiods. These changes, researchers suggested, could be associ-ated with extreme weather events at lower latitudes, such as extrasnowy U.S. winters in 2009-10 and 2010-11. 5

Arctic warming also accelerates glacier melting. Accordingto the U.S. Geological Survey, from the 1950s through the 1990sAlaskan glaciers lost 13 cubic miles of ice yearly — and thatrate doubled in the 2000s. Melting glaciers in Alaska and BritishColumbia, Canada, account for about 8 percent of ice meltworldwide, and melting glaciers account for just over half ofthe current rates of global sea-level rise. 6

“Melting of Northern Hemisphere ice will be an increasinglyimportant factor in sea-level rise,” says James McCarthy, a pro-fessor of biological oceanography at Harvard University andmember of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. “That will stressour coasts, especially during major storms like [Hurricanes] Sandyor Katrina. All Americans pay the price for disasters like that.”Arctic warming also could intensify global change in other

ways in the future. Scientists are studying whether organic

Warming Arctic Has Repercussions ElsewhereMelting ice affects weather, ocean levels in other regions.


cial services were available comparedto urban Anchorage and Fairbanks. 63

Arctic Warming

With the end of the Cold Warand the collapse of the Soviet

Union in 1991, U.S. concerns about along-range nuclear attack over the NorthPole eased. In 1994 President Bill Clin-ton signed Presidential Decision Di-rective 26, hailing new opportunitiesfor “collaboration among all eight Arc-tic nations on environmental protec-tion, environmentally sustainable de-

velopment, concerns of indigenous peo-ples and scientific research.” 64

Though geographically remote, the Arc-tic was becoming acutely vulnerable toglobal environmental threats. Ocean cur-rents and global wind patterns carriedtoxic environmental chemicals thousands

materials such as plants and peat stored in permafrost couldrelease carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas that con-tributes to climate change — as the permafrost melts. But re-searchers question how much organic material lies under thepermafrost and how much carbon would be released underdifferent scenarios. In addition, enhanced plant growth —stimulated by warming temperatures and rising carbon diox-ide levels in the atmosphere — could boost the amount ofcarbon removed from the air by plants, partly offsetting thepermafrost releases. 7 A 2012 United Nations Environment Pro-gramme report called for a special iternational assessment ofhow thawing permafrost could affect climate change and notedthat this issue is not currently programmed into global cli-mate models. 8

Also under study is the question of whether methane hydrates— frozen gas deposits located in cold zones under high pres-sure, which occur beneath Arctic permafrost, on the Arctic seabed,and under the seabed — could be released to the atmosphereas the seas warm. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with25 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide (although it re-mains in the atmosphere for a much shorter time, so it has lessoverall impact on climate.) Some analyses, including a recent com-mentary in the prominent journal Nature, have warned that sudden,devastating large-scale release of methane could cause drastic warm-ing within as little as 50 years. 9

Other researchers, however, are skeptical of this scenario,widely referred to as a “methane bomb.” Such an impact is “sounlikely as to be completely pointless talking about,” said GavinSchmidt, a NASA climate specialist. 10 Other critics noted thatNature had published an article in 2011 suggesting that a cat-astrophic methane release within the next several centuries wasvirtually impossible. 11

— Jennifer Weeks

1 Jessica Blunden and Derek S. Arndt, “State of the Climate in 2012,” Bulletinof the American Meteorological Society, vol. 94, no. 8 (2013), pp. S111-S112,http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2013BAMSStateoftheClimate.1.2 “Aerosols May Drive a Significant Portion of Arctic Warming,” NASA, April 8,2009, www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html.3 Andrew Freedman, “Groundbreaking New Study Shows How to Reduce

Near-Term Global Warming,” Climate Central, Jan. 12, 2012, www.climatecentral.org/news/groundbreaking-new-study-shows-how-to-reduce-near-term-global-warmin.4 Eric Post, et al., “Ecological Consequences of Sea-Ice Decline,” Science,vol. 341, Aug. 2, 2013, pp. 520-521.5 Jennifer A. Francis and Stephen J. Vavrus, “Evidence Linking Arctic Ampli-fication to Extreme Weather,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 39, L06801(2012); James E. Overland, et al., “The Recent Shift in Early Summer ArcticAtmospheric Circulation,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 39, L19804 (2012).6 Carl J. Markon, Sarah F. Trainor and F. Stuart Chapin, eds.,“The United States National Climate Assessment — Alaska Technical Re-gional Report,” U.S. Geological Survey circular 1379 (2012), pp. 45-46,http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1379/pdf/circ1379.pdf.7 “Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost,” United Nations EnvironmentProgramme, 2012, p. 19, www.unep.org/pdf/permafrost.pdf.8 Ibid.9 Gail Whiteman, Chris Hope and Peter Wadhams, “Climate Science: Vast Costsof Arctic Change,” Nature, vol. 499, July 25, 2013, www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/pdf/499401a.pdf.10 Chris Mooney, “How Much Should You Worry About An Arctic MethaneBomb?” Grist, Aug. 9, 2013, http://grist.org/climate-energy/how-much-should-you-worry-about-an-arctic-methane-bomb/.11 Andrew C. Revkin, “Arctic Methane Credibility Bomb,” The New YorkTimes, July 25, 2013, http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/arctic-methane-credibility-bomb/.

Melting sea ice indirectly caused the destruction of thishouse in Shishmaref, an Alaskan village on an island in

the Chukchi Sea. Sea ice prevents storms from creating huge waves that pound the shore, causing beach erosion and other damage.

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Arctic and Antarctic Are Poles ApartBoth regions are cold and remote, but they differ in many ways.

Sources: “Polar Discovery: Compare the Poles,” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/poles/index.html; European Union Arctic Centre Information Initiative, www.arcticcentre.org/?DeptID=7768 (current population); Charles Emmerson, et al., Arctic Opening: Opportunity and Risk in the High North (2012), pp. 26-27, www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Energy,%20Environment%20and%20Development/0412arctic.pdf.

Arctic Antarctic

Geography Vast ocean covered by constantly shifting ice Solid land mass with mountains rising to 16,000 sheets; surrounded by land that forms the feet, surrounded by ocean. Ice covers 98 percent northern regions of Canada, Denmark, Finland, of land to average depth of one mile or more. Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States.

Plant life Shrubs, flowers grasses, mosses and lichens on Very few plants except for mosses, algae and tundra (northernmost zone); farther south large lichens. forests of spruce, larch, aspen, birch and pine.

Animal life Land mammals include grizzly and black No year-round land animals except for micro- bears, wolves, musk ox, wolverines, foxes, organisms; all birds and mammals spend much caribou and smaller species such as hares, of their lives in the ocean, including penguins, voles and shrews. Seals and polar bears seabirds and seals. spend much of their lives on sea ice.

Human Earliest evidence of human settlement No indigenous population. The first explorer tosettlement dates back 30,000 to 40,000 years (western cross the Antarctic Circle was Capt. James Cook,(historic) Siberia). First North American settlement in 1773. occurred about 15,000 years ago.

Current Approximately 4 million people, of which Between 500 and 1,000 visiting research scientistshuman about 10 percent (400,000) belong to more at more than 60 scientific bases, depending onpopulation than 40 indigenous groups. season. No long-term residents.

Largest Murmansk (307,000), Norilsk (175,000), Nonecities and Vorkuta (70,000), Russia; Tromso, Norway populations (68,000); Barrow, Alaska (4,000), is the only city in the U.S. Arctic.

Treaties and No broad regional treaty, but international Antarctic Treaty (1959, 50 nations). Members organizations law provides guidelines on issues such as pledge that Antarctica will be used only for navigation rights, ship operations, boundary peaceful purposes and that they will support disputes and marine conservation. scientific research and share their findings. Arctic Council, an international coordinating Protocols to treaty address environmental organization of the eight Arctic nations, meets protection and conservation of marine resources. every two years; six non-Arctic nations were Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, granted observer status in 2013. an international body, coordinates research.

Major climate Average temperatures are warming twice as Rapid warming on West Antarctic Peninsula. Totalchange rapidly as in lower-latitude regions. Drastic sea ice cover is slowly increasing, but Antarctic iceimpacts shrinkage of sea ice and thawing permafrost. is expanding in some areas and shrinking in others.

Natural Known to exist: Coal, copper, diamonds Little known about potential reserves. Miningresources gold, iron, lead, natural gas, nickel, oil activities, except for scientific research, are palladium, platinum, silver, uranium, zinc and banned under a protocol to the Antarctic Treaty. rare earth metals.


of miles north from industrialized coun-tries, concentrating them in Arctic re-gions. 65 And scientists studying glob-al climate change detected ominoustrends: rapid warming of temperaturesacross the Arctic and shrinking Arcticsea ice.In the mid-1990s researchers began

reporting that Arctic sea ice wasshrinking — a result, according toglobal climate models, of rising lev-els of heat-trapping greenhousegases in the atmosphere. 66 Field stud-ies also found that existing ice wasbecoming thinner. 67 By 2000, sci-entists were predicting the ArcticOcean could be ice-free in summer-time within as little as 50 years. 68

In 2004 the Arctic Climate ImpactAssessment, a major scientific studyprepared at the request of the Arc-tic Council members, released its find-ings in three reports. “The Arctic isnow experiencing some of the mostrapid and severe climate change onearth,” it stated. These changes werelikely to increase access to resourcesand shipping routes but would havemajor impacts on plants, animals andhumans throughout the region. 69

Environmentalists seized on polarbears as a potent symbol of climatechange effects. In 2005 the Center forBiological Diversity, a national envi-ronmental advocacy group, petitionedthe Interior Department to list polarbears as an endangered species. 70

Three years later, the Interior Depart-ment designated the polar bear as“threatened,” a less urgent status thanendangered. 71

By this time flooding and erosionfrom climate change were endanger-ing some Alaska Native communities,most of which were located along riversand coastlines. In 2009 the U.S. Gov-ernment Accountability Office reportedthat 31 Alaska communities were threat-ened and that 12 were seeking to re-locate. But no overarching federal pro-gram was available to help these villages

relocate, and the communities often failedto qualify for federal disaster prepared-ness and recovery programs. 72

CURRENTSITUATIONOutside Interests

M any nations, including some lo-cated far from the Arctic Circle,

are interested in commercial opportu-nities in the Arctic. Some, includingChina and Japan, have already sentscientists to conduct research in theArctic. And many companies aroundthe world would like to compete tomanufacture equipment for Arctic de-velopment, such as oil drilling plat-forms or icebreaking ships.Earlier this year the Arctic Council

admitted six non-Arctic countries asobservers: China, India, Singapore, Italy,Japan and South Korea. Opinion amongArctic nations reportedly was mixedabout this step: Canada had warnedbefore the meeting that expansion couldcomplicate the council’s work, and Rus-sia was said to be reluctant. But Nordiccountries argued that new participantswould make the council “a lot morerelevant to the whole world,” in thewords of Espen Barth Eide, Norway’sforeign minister. 73

Many international observers agree.“The Arctic Council could either re-main a regional club or let others par-ticipate, and it saw that there was aglobal role to play,” says Conley of theCenter for Strategic and InternationalStudies. “If other nations had been putoff, they could have created compet-ing structures, which wouldn’t haveserved anyone’s purpose.”The council rejected the European

Union’s request for observer status be-cause of disputes between Arctic

countries and the EU over seal hunt-ing. It also postponed considering ap-plications from Greenpeace and sev-eral other international organizationsuntil its 2015 meeting. 74

China has shown strong interest inArctic affairs. As a major exporting na-tion, China would benefit from oppor-tunities to send cargo ships throughthe Arctic. Along with India, China alsois a potential customer for Arctic oiland gas. 75 After China was admitted tothe Arctic Council, the country’s PolarResearch Institute announced that it wouldestablish a joint China-Nordic Arctic Re-search Center in Shanghai to fund schol-arships and research. “Understanding theArctic is incredibly difficult. We need allthe talented people we can get,” saidKim Holmen, international director ofthe Norwegian Polar Institute. 76

As the Arctic Council’s profile rises,some observers say the United Statesneeds an Arctic ambassador like theofficials who represent other countriesin the council. Even some non-Arcticnations, such as Japan, have appoint-ed Arctic ambassadors. In the UnitedStates, dozens of federal agencies, statesand tribes help make Arctic policy,managed by six interagency groups atthe White House. Those groups in-clude representatives from the de-partments of State, Defense, Commerce,Homeland Security, Transportationand Energy, among other federal agen-cies. The most senior policy group forthe Arctic coordinates Alaskan energydevelopment and is led by a deputysecretary of the Interior. 77

“It is not news . . . that America isbehind the curve when it comes to Arc-tic development and planning,” Alaskanjournalist Carey Restino wrote in May.“An Arctic ambassador would representthis country’s interests as well as edu-cate our nation’s leaders on the impor-tance of these issues.” She noted thatthe United States has ambassadors-at-large handling specific issues such asinternational religious freedom, globalwomen’s issues and HIV and AIDS. 78


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Drilling on Hold

A fter Shell’s difficulties in the Beringand Chukchi seas last year, envi-

ronmentalists and some indigenous groupswant the government to suspend Arcticoffshore drilling. Although the Obamaadministration continues to support Arc-tic oil and gas production, federal regu-lators are re-evaluating rules for energycompanies operating in the region. Thecompanies are waiting to see what thosenew regulations will require.

Shell sent two floating drilling rigsand 20 support vessels to the Arcticand planned to drill up to 10 ex-ploratory wells in the Beaufort andChukchi seas. 79 The company drilledtwo nonproducing wells but failed towin Coast Guard approval of its oil-spillcontainment barge when a containmentdome sank and was crushed by waterpressure during a test. 80 After the com-pany left the drill sites, its Kulluk rigran aground near Kodiak Island whilebeing towed in stormy weather. 81

“[F]ar more ably than its many crit-ics, Shell has proven the folly of Arc-tic offshore drilling,” the leaders of 18national environmental advocacygroups wrote to then-Interior Secre-tary Ken Salazar last January, callingfor a moratorium on offshore oil andgas development in the Arctic. 82

Industry advocates reply that, notwith-standing Shell’s difficulties, energy com-panies have substantial experience op-erating offshore in difficult conditions.“Shell’s project was the first proposedfor some time in the Chukchi Sea, but

[the oil industry has] been doing a lotof work in areas like the GreenlandSea, the Sakhalin Basin in Russia andthe North Sea,” says Richard Ranger, asenior policy adviser at the AmericanPetroleum Institute. “With each newproject, companies draw on relevantlessons from other places.”Moreover, he asserts, Shell executed

its operations at the drill sites satisfac-torily. “Interior’s main concerns [in itsreview] related to towing the Kullukacross the Gulf of Alaska in midwin-

ter. That’s relevant to project manage-ment, but it doesn’t really bear on thedrilling program,” he says. Oil industryrepresentatives are waiting to see whatkind of standards federal regulators willset for future drilling permits. But theyexpect that the permitting process willbecome more intensive.Shell may also seek permits for new

projects in 2014, but before it can carryout further offshore operations the In-terior Department has required it todevelop “a comprehensive and inte-grated operational plan” covering eachstage of work and to commission anindependent reviewer to conduct a fullaudit of its management systems. 83

“The department has been solicit-ing a lot of information from industryover the past five years to clarify whatthe impacts of Arctic operations willbe,” says Ranger. “This is likely to bea deep dive into project planning.There’s no track record for it.”Alaska officials still support onshore

and offshore energy production. “Othernations are beginning to drill and de-velop in the North, whether we do ornot. The answer is not to shelve pro-jects but to do them right — to beleaders and set the bar high,” Lt. Gov.Treadwell said in July.

Displaced Towns

I n Shishmaref and Kivalina, nativevillages located on the Chukchi Sea,buildings have fallen into the sea, anderosion threatens key facilities in bothtowns, including airports, drinking watersupplies and sewage containment areas.Flooding in Newtok, near the BeringSea in western Alaska, has damaged thevillage’s barge landing and repeatedlyflooded its water supply, spreading rawsewage throughout the village. 84

All three of these villages have de-cided to relocate to avoid further threatsfrom climate change. But federal dis-aster relief programs are limited, and

Continued on p. 806

Alaska Native Lillian Lane prepares locally caught whale meat and skin at herhome in Point Hope, one of the oldest continuously occupied communities inNorth America. Storm-caused erosion threatens the ancient outpost, whereresidents live a mostly subsistence life of hunting whales, seal, caribou and

walrus and fishing for salmon. Coastal Alaska residents generally have difficultyobtaining federal disaster relief for flooding and erosion damage.

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At Issue:Should the United States suspend Arctic offshore drilling?yes

yesDANIEL J. INULAK LUMINUPIAT ESKIMO; AUTHOR OF NUVUK, THENORTHERNMOST

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, SEPTEMBER 2013

t he United States should suspend offshore drilling, includ-ing new lease sales, in the Arctic Ocean because a majoroil spill would devastate our rich marine environment and

the coastal communities that depend on it. Shell Oil hasdemonstrated it lacks the equipment and ability to operate safelyin the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska’s North Slope. In-dustry and government have not proved they can satisfactorilyrespond to oil spills at these drilling sites, where heavy seasand ocean ice consistently prevent the successful deployment ofdrilling and safety equipment.Shell’s poor track record and the Interior Department’s criti-

cal review of its operations only punctuate why drilling andlease sales should be suspended. In 2012 alone, Shell’s drillship Noble Discoverer almost ran aground near Dutch Harbor;its Kulluk drill rig grounded near Kodiak Island after its super-tug lost power; the oil spill response barge Arctic Challengercouldn’t meet safety standards and was absent during drillingoperations; and Shell’s oil spill containment dome, designed tovacuum up oil spills gushing beneath the surface, was “crushedlike a beer can” during sea-trial tests in Puget Sound accord-ing to an Interior Department official. The Coast Guard foundviolations on Shell’s ships and has turned over its investigationto the Department of Justice. Now picture these kinds ofevents shaping the “development” of the Arctic Ocean.Politicians, industry scientists, marketing firms and corporate

representatives continually hold conferences on oil-spill responseall over Alaska. They’ve produced plenty of reports, but not asingle successful demonstration of full oil-spill response capa-bilities at the Arctic drilling sites under real conditions, withmoving broken ice and massive sheets of pack ice. Whilesome skimming, booming and towing systems are tested andcertified in protected bays around Alaska, conditions in theseareas are far from those in Arctic waters where offshore de-velopment is occurring. Industry and government agencieswant Alaskans to trust their response plans and systems, butwe need proven capabilities!Coastal communities along Arctic Alaska rely on the ocean

to subsist. Abundant harvests of fish and marine mammalssustain rural Alaskan populations, providing healthy, rich foodin a harsh and challenging environment. Intricate food chainsconnect the Arctic Ocean environment to its native stewardsnutritionally and culturally. These rural communities have away of life already challenged by a changing climate and noware threatened by dysfunctional offshore development.no

SEN. MARK BEGICH, D-ALASKA

WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, SEPTEMBER 2013

t he vast oil and gas resources off Alaska’s Arctic coast rep-resent a challenge and opportunity America cannot affordto ignore.

Government estimates indicate the Chukchi and Beaufortseas hold 24 billion barrels of oil and more than 100 trillioncubic feet of natural gas. These numbers are enormous byany definition. Speaking with their wallets, major oil and gasproducers have paid the federal government more than $3 bil-lion to access these resources.For Alaskans, long providers of responsibly produced energy

to our nation, it’s clear why we should develop these resources.Each day, Americans drive 250 million cars and trucks.

While new federally mandated fuel-economy standards areleading to greater vehicle efficiency, we still burn about 7 bil-lion barrels of oil annually. About half that amount comes fromother countries, including many that do not have our best in-terests at heart. Coupled with vast oil and gas production gainsfrom the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and other regions, theArctic Ocean can bring us closer to energy independence.Admittedly, challenges have come up as we return to these

Arctic basins 20 years after some 35 exploration wells weredrilled without incident. Federal permitting agencies were slowto staff up and initially lacked coordination and cooperation.But with the help of an executive order by President Obama

and the heroic efforts of former Interior Deputy Secretary DavidHayes, the Alaska Inter-Agency Energy Working Group broughtpeople and agencies together, shortened permit lead times andmade government more sensible and responsive.The producers also had high-profile setbacks. Shell’s troubles

transporting the Kulluk drill rig this winter, some 1,000 milesaway from its drill site, demonstrated both the logistical chal-lenges and capabilities of industry and government.Just as improving technology has delivered startling, new

production gains in oil and natural gas from source rock inunexpected places, the technology also exists to manage geo-logically simple wells drilled in shallow Arctic waters.As we learn more about Arctic marine ecosystems, weather,

currents and winter ice movements, we also must learn moreabout energy resources through active exploration. The invest-ments and infrastructure needed to bring them to market aresubstantial and will take nearly a decade to put in place.While we must be prudent, we should not hesitate to re-

sponsibly produce Arctic resources to reduce our dependenceon foreign oil.

806 CQ Researcher

native villages often do not qualify forthem. A state-level working group, es-tablished under former Gov. Palin in2007 to aid threatened communities,lapsed in 2011.“We’re using anachronistic models

of disaster relief, and we need newfederal leadership to figure out the rightresponse,” says Robin Bronen, execu-tive director of the Alaska ImmigrationJustice Project in Anchorage. Federaldisaster relief programs focus on ex-treme weather events, such as Hurri-cane Sandy in 2012, that displace largenumbers of people, but Alaska’s coastalcommunities are contending with slow-ly encroaching sea levels as well as therisk of extreme weather.“We need a different framework for

addressing the slow creep of sea-levelrise and making decisions about howto adapt infrastructure so that it willlast,” says Bronen.Newtok residents have identified a

new site nine miles away, but townofficials are struggling to raise the es-timated $130 million needed from stateand federal agencies to move. ManyAlaskan state agencies will not fundthe construction of new facilities at arelocation site when the communitydoes not already reside there.“I think it’s going to be piece by

piece with each community and manydifferent pots of money,” said Lt. Gov.Treadwell. 85

Alaska Natives have trouble ob-taining federal disaster relief forflooding and erosion damage for sev-eral reasons. Relocation projects fora few hundred residents have a highratio of costs to benefits, which weighsagainst them in the grant awardprocess. Very few federal disaster de-clarations have been issued for grad-ual flooding and erosion problems.And unincorporated villages cannotparticipate in FEMA’s National FloodInsurance Program. 86

Many news reports have called thesevillagers “climate refugees,” but Bro-

nen, an immigration lawyer, disputesthe use of that term. “Refugees aremoving across borders, not people whohave been internally displaced in theirown countries,” she says. “And in apolicy context, it implies that a per-son’s national government is perse-cuting them or leaving them exposedto harm. Victims of Hurricane Katrinawere highly offended to be calledrefugees, because they were in theirown country and expected help fromtheir government.”Bronen would like to see the Obama

administration convene a task force todevelop responses to climate changeeffects like those that threaten AlaskaNative villages. “Climate change willforce millions of people around theworld to relocate, and there’s no planin place,” she says. “The United Statescould create a model for helping peo-ple all around the world who are dis-placed by climate change.”

OUTLOOKChanges and Opportunities

A rctic experts and observers havemany different views on U.S. pri-

orities in the region, but many havecommon themes. Some critics say re-cent rhetoric has over-emphasized thelikelihood of international competitionin the Arctic and ignored opportuni-ties for nations to cooperate.“I don’t see a race for resources or

some kind of looming clash,” saysConley of the Center for Strategic andInternational Studies. “We’re not see-ing new threats to sovereignty. Russiaand Norway are exploring Arctic re-sources, but they’re doing it in a co-operative international framework.We’re trending in a good direction.But we need to invest in the Arctictoday to stay on that track.”

Alaska officials say the Obama ad-ministration’s Arctic strategy does notaddress economic development. “It’s aterrible omission because this regionis ripe for more than $100 billion ininvestments now. That will strengthenthe U.S. economy and increase regionalenergy independence,” Lt. Gov. Tread-well said in July. 87 “Smart businessrequires reliable and clear decision-making. Instead Alaska is forced towork with unworkable mandates froman absentee landowner who doesn’twant to talk about the economy.”Some experts say ratifying the Law

of the Sea convention is an even high-er priority, since it would codify U.S.rights to Arctic resources within its ex-tended territory. It would also give theUnited States more leverage in dis-cussions about managing the Arctic.“China considers itself an Arctic na-

tion, and they’re up there with ice-breakers. We won’t even have resourcesto develop unless we get jurisdictionunder UNCLOS,” says Harun of PacificEnvironment. “We should be part ofthe international framework for man-aging the region.”Toward that end, Harvard’s McCarthy

recommends that the United States de-velop a coordinated national Arctic re-search program. The National ScienceFoundation manages an Antarctic ResearchProgram that supports scholars in manyscientific fields, but work on Arctic issuesdoes not receive the same kind of focus.“Current funding isn’t adequate to

support what we need to understandArctic ecosystems and processes, suchas how nutrients are transported andhow sea ice is changing. There’s a hugeresearch agenda, and we’re barelyscratching the surface,” says McCarthy.Ratifying UNCLOS would also advancescientific goals, he says. “The Law ofthe Sea treaty will guide how the cen-tral Arctic is used, not just commerciallybut for research. Treaty members havestanding that lets them shape how areasbeyond national exclusive economiczones will be used,” he says.




In debates about U.S. and interna-tional interests in the Arctic, the chal-lenge of managing change looms great-est for the region’s residents. “TheInternet has come to northwest Alas-ka. Rap music. Cell phones. Canadianwhiskey. Ipods. Ebay. YouTube. Low-rise jeans,” writes award-winning au-thor Seth Kantner, who grew up hunt-ing, trapping and fishing in the BrooksRange of northern Alaska and lives innorthwest Alaska today.Modern conveniences and devel-

opment have transformed Arctic resi-dents’ historic connection to their land.“If you can turn your back to the wind,not see or know . . . out on the land,the caribou are in storm and cold rightnow; they are cratering down throughdrifted snow to get to the tundra tofeed. Those hunters, the wolves, theyare there, too,” writes Kantner. “Nei-ther has changed hardly a blink in thelast how many thousand years. We arethe ones who have changed. And I’mafraid we’ve only just begun.” 88

Notes

1 “Arctic Report Card: Update for 2012,” Na-tional Oceanographic and Atmospheric Admin-istration, Jan. 21, 2013, www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/exec_summary.html.2 For background, see Jennifer Weeks, “Cli-mate Change,” CQ Researcher, June 14, 2013,pp. 521-544.3 “Polar Discovery,” Woods Hole OceanographicInstitution, http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/arctic/geography-en.html.4 Arctic sea ice expands during cold monthsand shrinks during warm months, typicallyreaching its maximum extent in March andits minimum point in September. National Snowand Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colo., ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Sep/(figures are for sea ice extent in September,converted to square miles).5 “Arctic Nearly Free of Summer Sea Ice Dur-ing 1st Half of 21st Century,” National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration, April 12, 2013,www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013//20130412_arcticseaice.html.

6 See also Brian Beary, “Race for the Arctic,”CQ Global Researcher, August 2008, pp. 213-242.7 Undiscovered recoverable resources are be-lieved to exist based on geological modelingand to be recoverable using today’s technology.“Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimatesof Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arc-tic Circle,” U.S. Geological Survey, 2008, http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3049/.8 Denmark is considered an Arctic nation be-cause it controls the Faroe Islands and Green-land, most of which lies above the Arctic Circle.9 Secretary of State John Kerry, remarks atthe Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting, Kiruna,Sweden, May 15, 2013, www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/05/209403.htm.10 “National Strategy for the Arctic Region,”The White House, May 2013, www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/nat_arctic_strategy.pdf (quote on p. 4).11 “Political Reaction to Obama Administra-tion’s National Strategy for the Arctic,” May 10,2013, www.blog.haulinggear.com/2013/05/political-reaction-to-obama.html.12 The law, nicknamed the Alaska Lands Act,set aside more than 100 million acres of fed-eral lands in Alaska as national parks, wildliferefuges, national monuments, wilderness areasand national parks. For background, see “Whatis ANILCA?” National Parks Conservation As-sociation, Oct. 27, 2011, www.npca.org/news/media-center/fact-sheets/anilca.html.13 Mead Treadwell, speech at the Center forStrategic and International Studies, Washington,D.C., July 30, 2013, http://csis.org/event/benefits-and-costs-cold.14 Heather A. Conley, et al., “Arctic Economicsin the 21st Century: The Benefits and Costs ofCold,” Center for Strategic and International Stud-ies, July 2013, p. 61, http://csis.org/event/benefits-and-costs-cold. For background on newgas discoveries, see Daniel McGlynn, “Frack-ing Controversy,” CQ Researcher, Dec. 16, 2011,pp. 1049-1072.15 Conley, “Arctic Economics,” op. cit., pp. 61-63.16 “Department of the Interior Releases As-sessment of Shell’s 2012 Arctic Operations,”March 14, 2013, www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/department-of-the-interior-releases-assessment-of-shells-2012-arctic-operations.cfm; Mar-garet Kriz Hobson, “Is Arctic Oil ExplorationDead in the U.S.?” EnergyWire, July 18, 2013,www.eenews.net/stories/1059984582.17 Lisa Demer, “EPA Fines Shell More Than$1 Million for Pollution Violations in Alaska Arc-tic,” Anchorage Daily News, Sept. 5, 2013, www.adn.com/2013/09/05/3060253/epa-fines-shell-

more-than-1-million.html.18 Clifford Krauss, “ConocoPhillips SuspendsIts Arctic Drilling Plans,” The New York Times,April 10, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/business/energy-environment/conocophillips-suspends-arctic-drilling-plans.html.19 Letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar from18 regional and national conservation advocacygroups, Jan. 9, 2013, http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/ArcticCEOlettertoDOI.pdf.20 Joint Statement of Indigenous Solidarity forArctic Protection, www.greenpeace.org/canada/Global/Canada/pr/2013/o5/statement-postconference.pdf.21 See U.S. Geological Survey, “Circum-ArcticResource Appraisal: Estimates of UndiscoveredOil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle,” 2008,http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3049/. Natural gasliquids are components of natural gas such aspropane and butane that are extracted duringprocessing.22 For background see www.continentalshelf.org/about/1143.aspx. Although the UnitedStates has not joined UNCLOS, President RonaldReagan issued a proclamation in 1983 thatclaimed jurisdiction over activities in the U.S.EEZ. Proclamation 5030, March 10, 1983, www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/proclamations/05030.html.23 For more information see “ContinentalShelves,” Marine Bio Conservation Society, http://marinebio.org/oceans/continental-shelves.asp.24 The hearings took place on May 23, June14, and June 28, 2012, www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/.25 Testimony before the Senate Foreign Re-lations Committee, June 28, 2012, p. 5, www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/REVISED_Gerard_Testimony.pdf.26 Kristina Wong and Sean Lengell, “DeMint:Law of the Sea Treaty Now Dead,” The Wash-ington Times, July 16, 2012, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/16/demint-says-law-sea-treaty-now-dead/?page=all.27 Letter to U.S. Sens. Ted Stevens and LisaMurkowski, Sept. 13, 2007, http://archive2.globalsolutions.org/files/general/Palin_LOS_Letter.pdf.28 Eddie Hunsinger and Eric Sandberg, “The Alas-ka Native Population,” Alaska Economic Trends,April 2013, p. 4, http://labor.state.ak.us/trends/apr13.pdf.29 Stephanie Martin and Alexandra Hill, “TheChanging Economic Status of Native Alaskans,1970-2007,” Institute of Social and EconomicResearch, University of Alaska-Anchorage, July2009, www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu/Publications/webnote/WebNote5.pdf.

808 CQ Researcher

30 “Alaska Native Cultures,” University of Alaska-Fairbanks, http://fna.community.uaf.edu/alaska-native-cultures/.31 For more information about Native corpora-tions and resource development, see “Alaska’snative corporations,” Alaska Resource Develop-ment Council, www.akrdc.org/issues/nativecorporations/overview.html.32 ‘Joint Statement of Indigenous Solidarityfor Arctic Protection,” www.greenpeace.org/canada/Global/canada/pr/2013/05/statement_postconference.pdf.33 “Regional Alaska Native Corporations: Status40 Years After Establishment, and Future Con-siderations,” U.S. Government AccountabilityOffice, GAO-13-121 (December 2012), p. 39,www.gao.gov/assets/660/650857.pdf.34 Richard Harris, “Native Alaskans Dividedon State’s Oil Drilling Debate,” National PublicRadio, March 20, 2012, www.npr.org/2012/03/20/148754357/native-alaskans-divided-on-states-oil-drilling-debate.35 “Alaska Energy Brief,” Alaska Federation ofNatives, May 2012, p. 5, www.nativefederation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2012-afn-cap-alaska-day-brief.pdf.36 Ibid.37 Ibid., p. 5. The Alaska Federation of Na-tives represents the state’s 13 for-profit regionalNative corporations, 244 Native villages, and12 regional non-profit tribal consortia.38 “Alaska Native Priorities for the 2012-2013 Pres-idential and Congressional Transition,” Alaska Fed-eration of Natives, December 2012, pp. 9-10,www.nativefederation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/AFN_TransitionWhitePaper_121912.pdf.39 “Alaska Renewable Energy Profile 2010,” U.S.Energy Information Administration, March 8, 2012,www.eia.gov/renewable/state/Alaska/.40 Margaret Kriz Hobson, “Limited ResourcesMay Force Coast Guard to Get Creative DuringNext Arctic Traffic Jam,” EnergyWire, Nov. 30,

2012, www.eenews.net/stories/1059973122;Antonieta Rico, “Papp: No Plans for More Coastiesin Arctic,” Navy Times, June 1, 2013, www.navytimes.com/article/20130601/NEWS03/306010006/Papp-No-plans-more-Coasties-Arctic.41 “Secretary Clinton Signs the Arctic Search andRescue Agreement with Other Arctic Nations,”U.S. Department of State, May 12, 2011, www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/05/163285.htm.42 “Begich Provision to Spur Arctic DeepwaterPort Development Clears the Senate,” May 14,2013, www.begich.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=79aa5f62-701c-4907-8d67-a06764482822.43 Alexandra Gutierrez, “Begich Calls for In-vestment in Arctic Ports,” Alaska Public Radio,March 4, 2013, www.alaskapublic.org/2013/03/04/begich-calls-for-investment-in-arctic-ports/.44 For details see www.poa.usace.army.mil/Library/ReportsandStudies/AlaskaRegionalPortsStudy.aspx.45 Statement of Jack Omelak before the U.S.Senate Committee on Commerce, Science,and Transportation, Subcommittee on Oceans,Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard, An-chorage, Alaska, March 27, 2013, www.commerce.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=80540302-2c7c-4eda-883c-c02328f70045.46 Statement of Matt Ganley before the U.S.Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, andTransportation, Subcommittee on Oceans, At-mosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard, Anchor-age, Alaska, March 27, 2013, p. 2, www.commerce.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=87addd59-89e7-4220-816f-6fc1c40a46f6.47 Hillary Mayell, “Bones, Tools Push BackHuman Settlement in Arctic Region,” NationalGeographic News, Oct. 2, 2001, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1001_arctichabitation.html.48 John McCannon, A History of the Arctic:Nature, Exploration and Exploitation (2012),

pp. 30-31, 34.49 Teresa Hull and Linda Leask, “Dividing Alas-ka, 1867-2000” Changing Land Ownership andManagement, Alaska Review of Social andEconomic Conditions, November 2000, p. 2,www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu/Publications/Landswebfiles/lands.pdf.50 McCannon, op. cit., pp. 180-181.51 Bruce Henderson, “Who Discovered the NorthPole?” Smithsonian, April 2009, www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Cook-vs-Peary.html.52 Patricia Pierce Erikson, “Meet the Other Pearys,”Portland Monthly, December 2010, www.portlandmonthly.com/portmag/2010/12/meet-the-other-pearys/.53 In 1988 National Geographic published anarticle that reexamined Peary’s papers andconcluded that he had probably missed thepole. Bruce Henderson, “Who Discovered theNorth Pole?”, op. cit.54 “Alaskans and the United States,” AlaskaHistory and Cultural Studies, www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=170.55 “When was oil discovered and developedin Alaska?” Alaska Historical Society, www.alaskahistoricalsociety.org/index.cfm/discover-alaska/FAQs/10.56 For more information see “National Petro-leum Reserve — Alaska,” Bureau of Land Man-agement, www.blm.gov/ak/st/en/prog/energy/oil_gas/npra.html.57 “Military History in Alaska, 1867-2000,” JointBase Elmendorf-Richardson, Nov. 13, 2006, www.jber.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=5304.58 Jason Reagle, “The First ICEX,” UnderseaWarfare, Summer 2009, www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/usw_summer_09/nautilus.html.59 Hull and Leask, op. cit., p. 3.60 Ibid., p. 2.61 Janie Leask, “The Alaska Claims Settlement,”August 1984, www.alaskool.org/projects/ancsa/JLeask/Alaska_Claims_Settlement_JLeask.htm.62 A sovereign wealth fund is a government-controlled fund used to manage revenuesfrom the sale of valuable natural resourcessuch as oil, natural gas or minerals. For back-ground see Jennifer Weeks, “The Resource Curse,”CQ Researcher, Dec. 20, 2011, pp. 597-622.63 “Changes in the Well-Being of Alaska SinceANCSA,” Alaska Review of Social and Econom-ic Conditions, November 1984, www.alaskool.org/projects/ancsa/arsec.pdf.64 Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-26, June9, 1994, p. 2, www.clintonlibrary.gov/pdd.html.


About the AuthorJennifer Weeks is a Massachusetts freelance writer whospecializes in energy, the environment and science. She haswritten for The Washington Post, Audubon, Popular Me-chanics and other magazines and previously was a policy an-alyst, congressional staffer and lobbyist. She has an A.B. de-gree from Williams College and master’s degrees from theUniversity of North Carolina and Harvard. Her recent CQ Re-searcher reports include “Coastal Development” and “Manag-ing Wildfires.”

65 For an overview see Marla Cone, SilentSnow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic (2006).66 For example, see Malcolm Browne, “Ice ShiftsMay Be Tied To Warming,” The New York Times,Nov. 18, 1997, www.nytimes.com/1997/11/18/science/ice-shifts-may-be-tied-to-warming.html.67 Malcolm W. Browne, “Researchers FindSigns of Warming in Arctic Air, Ice and Water,”The New York Times, Oct. 20, 1998, www.nytimes.com/1998/10/20/us/researchers-find-signs-of-warming-in-arctic-air-ice-and-water.html;William K. Stevens, “Thinning Sea Ice StokesDebate on Climate,” The New York Times,Nov. 17, 1999, www.nytimes.com/1999/11/17/us/thinning-sea-ice-stokes-debate-on-climate.html.68 Walter Gibbs, “Research Predicts SummerDoom for Northern Icecap,” The New York Times,July 11, 2000, www.nytimes.com/2000/07/11/science/research-predicts-summer-doom-for-northern-icecap.html.69 “Impacts of a Warming Arctic,” Arctic ClimateImpact Assessment (2004), pp. 10-11, www.amap.no/documents/doc/impacts-of-a-warming-arctic-2004/786.70 Full text of petition at www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/polar_bear/pdfs/15976_7338.pdf.71 Juliet Eilperin, “Polar Bear is Named Threat-ened Species,” The Washington Post, May 15,2008, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/14/ST2008051403984.html.72 “Alaska Native Villages: Limited Progress HasBeen Made on Relocating Villages Threatenedby Flooding and Erosion,” U.S. GovernmentAccountability Office, GAO-09-551 ( June2009), www.gao.gov/new.items/d09551.pdf.73 Ellen Emmerentze Jervell and Alistair Mac-Donald, “Six Nations Win Seats on ArcticCouncil,” The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2013,http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324767004578484621098493056.html.74 Ibid.75 Stephen Blank, “Exploring China’s Arctic Ice-breaker,” Asia Times, July 7, 2013, www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-02-170713.html.76 Trude Patterson, “China Boosts Arctic Re-search,” Barents Observer, June 7, 2013, http://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/06/china-boosts-arctic-research-07-06.77 The groups are the Arctic Policy Group;the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Com-mittee; the Interagency Policy Committee onthe Arctic; the Interagency Working Groupon Coordination of Domestic Energy Devel-opment and Permitting in Alaska; the MaritimeSecurity Working Group; and the NationalOcean Council. Heather A. Conley, et al.,

“The New Foreign Policy Frontier: U.S. In-terests and Actors in the Arctic,” Center forStrategic and International Studies, March 2013,p. 23, http://csis.org/publication/new-foreign-policy-frontier.78 Carey Restino, “Opinion: Arctic Ambassadora Good Idea,” The Dutch Harbor Fisherman,May 3, 2013, www.thedutchharborfisherman.com/article/1318arctic_ambassador_a_good_idea.79 “Review of Shell’s 2012 Alaska OffshoreOil and Gas Exploration Program,” Report tothe Secretary of the Interior, March 8, 2013,pp. 11-12, 16, www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/upload/Shell-report-3-8-13-Final.pdf.80 Ibid., p. 19.81 Ibid., pp. 29-30.82 Jan. 9, 2013, letter to Secretary Salazar, www.earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/ArcticCEOlettertoDOI.pdf.83 “Review of Shell’s Offshore Oil and GasExploration Program,” op. cit., p. 2.

84 Robin Bronen, “Climate-Induced Displace-ment of Alaska Native Communities,” Brook-ings Project on Internal Displacement, Jan. 30,2013, pp. 12-17, www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/01/30-arctic-alaska-bronen.85 Suzanne Goldenberg, “ ‘It’s Happening Now. . . The Village is Sinking,’ ” The Guardian,May 15, 2013, www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2013/may/15/newtok-safer-ground-villagers-nervous.86 “Alaska Native Villages: Limited ProgressHas Been Made on Relocating VillagesThreatened by Flooding and Erosion,” U.S.Government Accountability Office, GAO-09-551, June 2009, pp. 22-24, www.gao.gov/assets/300/290468.pdf.87 Speech at the Center for Strategic and Inter-national Studies, Washington, D.C., July 30, 2013,http://csis.org/event/benefits-and-costs-cold.88 Seth Kantner, “Caribou Currency,” in ArcticVoices: Resistance at the Tipping Point, SubhankarBanarjee, ed. (2012).


FOR MORE INFORMATIONAlaska Immigration Justice Project, 431 West 7th Ave., Suite 208, Anchorage,AK 99501; 907-279-2457; www.akijp.org. Nonprofit agency that provides low-costlegal assistance to immigrants and refugees in Alaska.

American Petroleum Institute, 1220 L St., N.W., Washington, DC 20005; 202-682-8000; www.api.org. National trade association representing the U.S. oil andnatural gas industries.

Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1800 K St., N.W., Washington,DC 20006; 202-887-0200; www.csis.org. Centrist think tank that offers bipartisanpolicy proposals on U.S. security issues.

Marine Conservation Alliance, 4005 20th Ave. W, Suite 115, Seattle, WA 98199;206-535-8357; www.marineconservationalliance.org. A coalition that promotes science-based policies for managing the marine resources of the North Pacific and BeringSea.

Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, U.S. Department of Energy,1000 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, DC 20585; 202-586-1272; http://energy.gov/indianenergy/office-indian-energy-policy-and-programs. Directs and coordinatesfederal programs that assist tribes with energy development, infrastructure, costsand electrification of tribal lands.

Pacific Environment, 215 Kearny St., 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94108; 415-399-8850; www.pacificenvironment.org. Nonprofit advocacy group that works toprotect the environment of the Pacific Rim, including Russia, China, California,Alaska and the Alaskan Arctic.

U.S. Arctic Research Commission, 4350 North Fairfax Dr., Suite 510, Arlington,VA 22203; 703-525-0111; www.arctic.gov. A small independent federal agency estab-lished in 1984 that works with other federal agencies to plan and guide scientificresearch on Arctic issues.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

810 CQ Researcher

Selected Sources

BibliographyBooks

Bernard, C. B., Chasing Alaska: A Portrait of the LastFrontier Then and Now, Lyons Press, 2013.A journalist roams across Alaska, charting the travels of an an-cestor who explored the area at the turn of the 20th century.

Grant, Shelagh D., Polar Imperative: A History of ArcticSovereignty in North America, Douglas & McIntyre, 2011.A Trent University (Canada) researcher provides an historyof nations’ claims to Arctic territorial rights.

McGhee, Robert, The Last Imaginary Place: A HumanHistory of the Arctic World, Oxford University Press, 2005.An archaeologist at the Canadian Museum of Civilizationrecounts the history of human settlement of the Arctic.

Østreng, Willy, et al., Shipping in Arctic Waters: A Com-parison of the Northeast, Northwest and Trans PolarPassages, Springer-Verlag, 2013.The authors evaluate the conditions along three Arctic trans-portation corridors.

Articles

“Arctic Politics: Cosy Amid the Thaw,” The Economist,March 24, 2012, www.economist.com/node/21551029.The British newsweekly reports on the Arctic Council’sgrowing importance as a forum for cooperation among Arc-tic nations.

“A New Normal for Arctic Sea Ice,” National Snow & IceData Center, July 2, 2013, http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2013/07/a-new-average-for-arctic-sea-ice/.The national data center monitors Arctic sea ice and findsit is shrinking by about 3.6 percent per decade.

Bellinger III, John B., “Treaty on Ice,” The New YorkTimes, June 23, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/opinion/23bellinger.html?_r=0.A legal adviser to former Secretary of State CondoleezzaRice argues that the United States should ratify the Law ofthe Sea Convention to protect its rights to Arctic offshoreresources.

Freedman, Andrew, “In Rapidly Changing Arctic, U.S.Playing Game of Catch-Up,” Climate Central, July 21,2013, www.climatecentral.org/news/in-rapidly-changing-arctic-u.s.-playing-game-of-catch-up-16271.A science journalist reports on how U.S. military and sci-entific agencies are scrambling to cope with the loomingprospect of a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean.

Goldenberg, Suzanne, “America’s Climate Refugees,” TheGuardian, May 13-15, 2013, www.guardian.co.uk/environ

ment/interactive/2013/may/13/newtok-alaska-climate-change-refugees.The British newspaper examines threats to native Alaskan com-munities from climate change in a three-part, multimedia series.

Hobson, Margaret Kriz, “Offshore Drilling: Is Arctic OilExploration Dead in the U.S.?”EnergyWire, July 18, 2013,www.eenews.net/stories/1059984582.A journalist details how Shell’s Arctic drilling setbacks in2012 have slowed the rush to drill offshore in the AmericanArctic but says long-term interest remains strong.

Struzik, Ed, “China’s New Arctic Presence Signals FutureDevelopment,”Yale Environment 360, June 4, 2013, http://e360.yale.edu/feature/chinas_new_arctic_presence_signals_future_development/2658/.A Canadian journalist reports that China’s recent observer-status admission to the Arctic Council signals that economicdevelopment of the increasingly ice-free region is becominga top priority for Arctic nations and others.

Reports and Studies

“National Security Strategy for the Arctic Region,” TheWhite House, May 10, 2013, www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/nat_arctic_strategy.pdf.The Obama administration presents its three-pronged Arcticstrategy: advancing U.S. security interests, pursuing respon-sible Arctic regional stewardship and strengthening interna-tional cooperation.

“Review of Shell’s 2012 Alaska Offshore Oil and GasExploration Program,” Report to the Secretary of theInterior, U.S. Department of the Interior, March 8, 2013,www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=348469.An Interior Department review of Shell’s offshore oil andgas exploration efforts in Alaska in 2012 finds that the com-pany was not fully prepared to operate in Arctic conditions.

Bronen, Robin, “Climate-Induced Displacement of AlaskaNative Communities,” Brookings Institution, Jan. 30, 2013,www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/01/30-arctic-alaska-bronen.An Alaska immigration-rights lawyer contends that govern-ment agencies are not providing the right kind of supportto relocate communities threatened by climate change.

Conley, Heather A., “The New Foreign Policy Frontier:U.S. Interests and Actors in the Arctic,” Center for Strate-gic and International Studies, April 22, 2013, http://csis.org/publication/new-foreign-policy-frontier.A centrist think tank calls for the United States to updateits Arctic policy and for high-level U.S. officials to focus moreon the region.


Development in the Region

Baczynska, Gabriela, “Veteran explorer stakes Russia’sclaim over the Arctic,” Reuters, Feb. 27, 2013, www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/27/us-russia-arctic-idUSBRE91Q11F20130227.A Russian polar explorer is spearheading Russia’s effort toclaim more of the Arctic shelf in the mineral-rich region.

Berkman, Paul Arthur, “Preventing an Arctic Cold War,”The New York Times, March 12, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/opinion/preventing-an-arctic-cold-war.html.Arctic and non-Arctic states need to work together to man-age the region’s resources so development is both sustain-able and peaceful, says an op-ed columnist.

Bolstad, Erika, “White House airs new policy on keyArctic challenges; President says it aims to balance con-flicting goals in the region,” Anchorage Daily News,May 11, 2013, www.adn.com/2013/05/10/2898235/white-house-outlines-new-policy.html.President Obama lays out a national strategy to pursueeconomic opportunities in the Arctic while conserving itsenvironment.

Native Communities

Hanley, Charles J., “Traditional life slipping away inGreenland,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 4, 2011.The traditional Inuit way of life in Greenland is changingrapidly along with the Arctic environment.

McNicholas, Laurie, “Arctic communities want role inoil spill response activities,” The Nome Nugget (Alaska),Aug. 22, 2013, www.nomenugget.net/archives/2013/08.22.13%20NN.pdf.As oil and gas exploration expands in the Arctic, Alaskancommunities want to be included in responses to shippingaccidents and oil spills.

Rosenthal, Elisabeth, “A Melting Greenland Weighs PerilsAgainst Potential,” The New York Times, Sept. 24, 2013,www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/science/earth/melting-greenland-weighs-perils-against-potential.html?pagewanted=all.As commercial fishing declines, new mining opportunitiesare appearing on the horizon for a Greenland community.

Offshore Drilling

Joling, Dan, “Begich: Shipping riskier than drilling in Arc-tic,” JuneauEmpire.com, March 13, 2013, http://juneauempire.com/state/2013-03-28/begich-shipping-riskier-drilling-arctic#.UhuMEtI3s30.

Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said he is more concernedabout the risks of shipping accidents than the dangers ofoffshore drilling.

Sullivan, Dan, “It’s time to develop our Arctic resources,”CNN, July 20, 2012, www.cnn.com/2012/07/20/opinion/sullivan-arctic-drilling.Development of Alaska’s mineral resources will promotethe nation’s interests, argues an Alaskan government official.

Warming Climate

“Polar bear hunting and migration ‘hit by warming cli-mate,’ ”The Guardian, March 20, 2013, www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/mar/20/polar-bear-hunting-migration-warming-climate.Polar bears’ hunting time on sea ice is declining as theArctic warms up, affecting their health and the ability ofcubs to survive to adulthood.

Reinwald, Pete, “Something strange in the air,” TheChicago Tribune, Aug. 22, 2013, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-08-22/news/ct-met-weird-weather-20130822_1_weird-weather-jet-stream-the-weather-channel.The warming of the Arctic is causing changes in the polarjet stream, resulting in prolonged weather events, accordingto several scientists.

Spotts, Pete, “Arctic sea ice falls to record low. Globalwarming?”The Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 8, 2012,www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2012/0908/Arctic-sea-ice-falls-to-record-low.-Global-warming.The Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the wholeof the Northern Hemisphere.

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