Troubled Northwest Passage Found

Even before the US decided it would be one of only three countries not bound by the goals for green- house gas emissions established in the 2015 Paris climate accord, the planet warmed to open a Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean. For example, cruise ships now travel from Alaska to New York without icebreaker assistance.

     Still, there is no guarantee that ships won't be grounded in a storm or that oil, natural gas, and mineral exploration in newly accessible waters won't accidentally endanger whales and migrating birds. Clean up in the cold Arctic where it is dark much of the year is an impossible task. Even without an incident, increased shipping activity introduces the new and unknown impact of underwater noise, dirty water, sewage discharge, and invasive species in the Arctic. With Russia now training military troops in Siberia, there also is a chance of aggression from the far North.

     Sunlight that the Arctic's ice used to reflect now helps quicken sea ice melt, at the rate of 10% per decade, and raises sea levels to threaten inhabitants of islands and coastal cities worldwide. As the disappearance of sea ice forced polar bears onto land, villagers along the Bering Straight needed to form polar bear patrols to protect students walking to school. Residents in the entire Alaskan village of Shishmaret had to relocate when their home began falling into the water. They will not be the only ones faced with the need to move to new homes.

     The reduced difference between temperatures in the Arctic and those in more temperate southern zones causes the fast moving air current, known as the jet stream, to weaken and make extreme weather changes of drought, heat, snow, and floods more likely in North America, Europe, and Asia.

     In 1996, representatives of Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Russia, and the United States formed an Arctic Council for scientific and environmental study of the Arctic. This advisory body has not shown the leadership needed to outline a vision for the Arctic. Instead, the UN's International Maritime Organization stepped up to provide a Polar Code of environmental regulations for polar shipping. And under President Obama, the US on its own initiative prohibited oil and gas drilling in the Chukchi Sea and most of the Beaufort Sea. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has declared a five year moratorium on offshore oil development in Canada's Arctic waters.

     Private companies are developing their own polar vision to generate geothermal steam energy from water heated in pipes by molten magma from Iceland's volcanoes. Buying into the possibilities of an expensive 20-year project to send clean, renewable volcanic energy from the Krafla Magma Testbed through North Atlantic underwater cables to power turbines in the UK, Netherlands, and/or Denmark are Iceland's Landsvirkjun, Norway's Statoil, Canada's Falco Resources, and US-based Sandia National Laboratories. Iceland's residents have received reassurances that drilling in the Krafla site will not trigger a volcanic eruption.

(For an earlier discussion of developments in the Arctic, go to the post, "North Pole Flag.")