Category:Arctic

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Arctic1 by Timo Lieber 800x480.jpg

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GreenPolicy360 Arctic Watch

What happens in the North doesn't stay in the North


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Follow the MOSAIC Expedition into the Arctic

 

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December 2020


Polar-ward climate zones shift and consequent tipping points

by Andrew Glikson

The concept of a global climate tipping point/s implies a confluence of climate change processes in several parts of the world where regional climate changes can combine as a runaway shifts to a new climate state. Conversely the shift of climate zones can constitute the underlying factor that triggers extreme weather events which culminate in tipping points. These shifts include the expansion of the tropics, tropical cyclones, mid-latitude storms and weakening of boundaries of the polar vortex, allowing breach of air masses of contrasting temperatures through the jet stream polar boundary, with ensuing snow storms and heatwaves.


Read more about ... "weakening of boundaries of the polar vortex", in other words ...

What happens in the North doesn't stay in the North


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November/October 2020

With ability to break through ice that is up to 21 feet thick, the Polar Star will be able to handle winter ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort... territory where the Coast Guard icebreaker Healy usually sails — but its Alaska operations are conducted in summer and fall, when the sea ice is low. “The Polar Star is a much more capable icebreaker. It’s older, but it’s capable of powering through thicker, older ice.”

The Polar Star’s exact mission in Alaska waters this winter has yet to be determined, Cangemi said. There are hopes that the ship will be able to support some of the scientific research that would have been done this year from the Healy but was not carried out...


September 2020


Warming shrinks Arctic Ocean ice to 2nd lowest on record

by Seth Borenstein, Science Writer / Associated Press


A Farewell to Arctic Ice

The Guardian


Ice Sheet Melt Worst Case Scenario


August 2020


Greenland's ice sheet melted faster than ever before in 2019, study says. Worrying news for coastal cities / CNN


Greenland's ice sheet lost an annual record of 532 billion tons of ice, with 223 billion tons of ice lost during the month of July alone.

To put that in comparison, between 2003 and 2016 the ice sheet lost about 255 billion tons of ice on average -- per year.

"We have documented another record loss year for Greenland," said Ingo Sasgen, a glaciologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and co-author of the study.

"What this shows is that the ice sheet is not only out of balance but it's increasingly likely to produce more and more extreme loss years."

The report follows another study published last week that found Greenland's ice sheet has melted to a point of no return, and is retreating in rapid bursts, leading to a sudden and unpredictable rise in sea levels.

 

In Memory of Planet Citizen Konrad Steffen

Renowned climate scientist dies in Greenland ice sheet accident


In 2017, Konrad Steffen talks about the Polar Research Station, climate change and the Greenland landscape


The Tipping Point in Greenland, Past the Point of No Return


Tipping Point Reached 20 Years Ago


New study warns: We have underestimated pace at which the Arctic is melting

by Niels Bohr Institute


Temperatures in the Arctic Ocean between Canada, Russia and Europe are warming faster than researchers' climate models have been able to predict.

Over the past 40 years, temperatures have risen by one degree every decade, and even more so over the Barents Sea and around Norway's Svalbard archipelago, where they have increased by 1.5 degrees per decade throughout the period.

This is the conclusion of a new study published in Nature Climate Change.

"Our analyses of Arctic Ocean conditions demonstrate that we have been clearly underestimating the rate of temperature increases in the atmosphere nearest to the sea level, which has ultimately caused sea ice to disappear faster than we had anticipated," explains Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institutet (NBI) and one of the study's researchers.


July 2020


'Another Ice Sheet Disintegrates'

Scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder initially predicted the disappearance of the St. Patrick Bay ice caps would take place over five years, but it's actually only taken three.

The frozen sheets, probably in place for several centuries, measured more than 10 square kilometres (3.86 square miles) combined at the end of the 1950s, and have now shrunk down to nothing. It's a sign of the climate change that's gaining momentum all around the world, and showing no signs of stopping.


Take the Ice-free Northern Route


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Arctic oil spill catastrophe

Russian whistleblower risking it all to expose the scale of the disaster. Environmentalists calling it the worst ecological catastrophe in the polar Arctic.


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Arctic warming? "More like three times the global mean." -- Dr. Gavin Schmidt


June 2020


A Disastrous Summer in the Arctic


Weather Report: Siberia is Hot, Really Hot


Alarming heat scorched Siberia on Saturday (June 20, 2020) as the small town of Verkhoyansk (67.5°N latitude) reached 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, 32 degrees above the normal high temperature... this is likely the hottest temperature ever recorded in Siberia and also the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle, which begins at 66.5°N.


Arctic-Siberia-6-20-2020.jpg

 

Greenland: 'Yuge Changes' in 'Human Time'


'New Arctic': Wildlife Migrations & Shifting Patterns as the Arctic Warms

Arctic / 'New North' Photo Essay

 

May 2020


Arctic heat in Russia-Siberia 2020.gif


Earlier this week in Siberia up to 86 degrees F. (30.1 C.)

The Arctic is ... 'Freakishly Warm'


The Arctic has been on one recently. Russia had its hottest winter ever recorded, driven largely by Siberian heat. That heat hasn’t let up as the calendar turns to spring. In fact, it’s intensified and spread across the Arctic. Last month was the hottest April on record for the globe, driven by high Arctic temperatures that averaged an astounding 9.4 degrees Celsius above normal, according to NASA data...

Large parts of Russia were anywhere from 6 to 8 degrees Celsius hotter than normal, according to data kept by Russia’s weather service. That smashes the previous record set in the winter of 2015-16 by 1.3 degrees Celsius. Amid the widespread heat were major records in places like Moscow, which barely got a winter at all this year.


Arctic 30.1 C at 62.5 N.jpg


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April 2020


Shell Abandons Arctic Drilling Agreement with Russia


March 2020


Oil/Gas Stock Prices Continue to Plunge

Fossil Fuels Demand Continues Its Historic Fall

Gasoline Demand Falls Most Ever


This could go even lower': Oil prices plunge to 17-year lows as demand drop threatens to overwhelm storage facilities

Crude oil prices tanked as continued fears over the coronavirus pandemic slammed energy demand.


February 2020


BP 'Reimagining Energy' ... Our purpose is reimagining energy for people and our planet. We want to help the world reach net zero and improve people’s lives.

We will aim to dramatically reduce carbon in our operations and in our production, and grow new low carbon businesses, products and services.
We will advocate for fundamental and rapid progress towards Paris and strive to be a leader in transparency.
We know we don’t have all the answers and will listen and work with others.
We want to be an energy company with purpose; one that is trusted by society, valued by shareholders and motivating for everyone who works at BP.
We believe we have the experience and expertise, the relationships and the reach, the skill and the will, to do this.


This will mean tackling around 415 million tonnes of emissions – 55 million from our operations and 360 million tonnes from the carbon content of our upstream oil and gas production. Importantly these are absolute reductions, to net zero, which is what the world needs most of all. We are also aiming to cut the carbon intensity of the products we sell by 50% by 2050 or sooner.

The world’s carbon budget is finite and running out fast; we need a rapid transition to net zero. -- Bernard Looney, chief executive officer




January 2020


'Thermokarst'

Permafrost Is Thawing So Fast, It’s Gouging Holes in the Arctic

Normally, these terrains of frozen soil thaw gradually. But in some places, it’s thawing so abruptly that landscapes are collapsing in on themselves


Via Nature Geoscience


December 2019


2019 Arctic Report Card

The average annual land surface air temperature north of 60° N for October 2018-August 2019 was the second warmest since 1900. The warming air temperatures are driving changes in the Arctic environment that affect ecosystems and communities on a regional and global scale.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is losing nearly 267 billion metric tons of ice per year and contributing to global sea-level rise.

Greenland ice sheet loss at 'worst-case' scenario

North American Arctic snow cover in May 2019 was the fifth lowest in 53 years of record. June snow cover was the third lowest.

Tundra greening continues to increase in the Arctic, particularly on the North Slope of Alaska, mainland Canada, and the Russian Far East.


Trump: It's a Hoax


The North Polar Region has warmed almost as much in the last decade as the whole of the Earth in the last 137 years, according to a new study.

The research paper claims the Arctic has warmed by 1.35°F (0.75°C) in 10 years, while Earth as a whole has warmed by around 1.44°F (0.8°C) since the start of the 1880s.

The new research paper, written by 15 international experts, predicts the effects of a 3.6°F (2°C) average global temperature rise – a milestone anticipated in the Paris Agreement.

'Many of the changes over the past decade are so dramatic they make you wonder what the next decade of warming will bring,' said lead author Eric Post, a UC Davis professor of climate change ecology.

'If we haven't already entered a new Arctic, we are certainly on the threshold.'


Fox News: Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Accelerating


Science Advances: Arctic Warming Fast & Faster


November 2019


Then and Now


October 2019


On Thin Ice


The Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, with higher temperatures pushing sea ice into a loop of melting and thinning. Its extent is lower today than in the ‘80s and ‘90s in “every area, every month and every season”, according to a recent IPCC report, which points out the plunging sea ice levels of September are probably unseen in at least 1,000 years. The same report points out that the Arctic’s sea ice melt season has grown as ice melts earlier and waters freeze later in the year. “We'll have winter sea ice for a long time to come, but unless actions are quickly taken, the summer sea ice might be essentially gone only a few decades from now,” says Dr. Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).


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Trump: There's not a climate crisis.

Trump on the Arctic melting, it's an opportunity. It's time to speed up gas and oil drilling in the Arctic and globally.


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What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic


Beauty & Peril in Greenland

Read the PBS story of the melt


September 2019


Climate Crisis, Law of the Sea, the Arctic Five, the Arctic Council, and the 'Pompeo Doctrine'

Oil, Gas, Minerals & Mining in a Melting Arctic


August 2019


Melting in the Bering Sea

Breaking Records, Melting in Greenland

Greenland & the Arctic is "where the action is" (Video)

Helluva Summer: "Alaska Waters Ice Free"

Glaciers of Iceland: Going, Going, and Gone


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Via the Financial Times


A heatwave in Greenland is producing record highs across the ice sheet, including at East Grip, the second highest monitoring station. “If you start melting at the top of the ice sheet, we are going to lose [the] Greenland ice sheet long-term."

At the summit of the Greenland ice cap the temperature rarely rises above zero degrees centigrade — the elevation is 3,200m and the ice below is more than a mile thick.

But last Friday (Aug 2, 2019), as the sun beat down, a small weather station laden with sensors captured something highly unusual: the temperature crept past zero and up to 3.6C — the highest since records began three decades ago. As temperatures rose across the massive ice sheet, which blankets an area five times the size of Germany, around 60 per cent of the surface started to melt, one of the largest ever recorded.

Scientists know of only three prior occasions in the past 800 years when there has been melting at the very top of the ice cap, which is kept chilled by the large volume of ice beneath. But this seems to be getting more frequent — it is now the second time this decade it has happened.


July 2019


Believe it or not, Arctic Wildfires


Today, July 30th, 2019, the Heat Hits Greenland


Greenland July 2019.png


Historic heat wave in Greenland... and historic fires in the Arctic

The Arctic is on fire, but it's just not trees that are burning, it's peatlands. The problem is supremely urgent.

“(Y)ou can burn well over 1,000 years of carbon accumulation in one single fire.”


Arctic wildfires-July 2019.jpg



June 2019


Steffen Olsen-June13,2019-Greenland-melting-ice-sheet.jpg


"Anomalously Warm Summers"

Temperatures 40 degrees above normal, Arctic Ocean and Greenland ice sheet see record June melting


May 2019


Via DoD / U.S. Pompeo warns of "aggressive behavior" in the Arctic region

Via Eyes on the Arctic / Pompeo lashes out at China, Russia


Via Union of Concerned Scientists / Trump administration: Arctic warming is good

Via Bulletin of Atomic Scientists / Trump administration and 'art' of talking climate change without using the term 'climate change'


April 2019


Arctic sea ice-April 2019.jpg


Reminder from the World Economic Forum / Global Agenda: 4 reasons why the Arctic is key to our planet’s survival


Key indicators of Arctic climate change: 1971–2017

• https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aafc1b/meta

• https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1748-9326/page/Arctic-Environmental-Variability-Change


 

March 2019


Arctic-March30,2019.jpg


Anchorage Daily News / Where's the Ice?

Sea ice is again at a historic low in the Bering Sea.

At the time of year when ice usually reaches its maximum, there’s open water in a vast area stretching from Bristol Bay to the Bering Strait, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“You could take your sailboat and sail from Dillingham all the way to Little Diomede and never see much more than an ice cube,” he said.

In the middle of Bering Strait, the ice went out on Thursday, leaving nothing but water...

March and early April are typically when sea ice in the Bering Sea reaches its maximum extent, and when communities that live along the coast travel on the ice for subsistence hunting and fishing.

The unprecedented lack of ice in the Bering Sea follows another record-breaking winter. Last spring, in 2018, the extent of ice in the Bering Sea only reached half of its previous lowest size, which was recorded in 2001. Thoman called the lack of ice “stunning” at the time.

This spring, the situation is even more extreme. While there’s more ice on the Russian side of the Bering Sea, there’s virtually none on the Alaska side.


Permafrost.jpg

 

Arctic is in Crisis.png


Arctic Undergoing Most Unprecedented Transition in Human History

 

China, Russia, the Arctic, and Military Positioning


December 2018


Arctic Ice-old ice being lost.png


Sen. Murkowski warning.png

 


November 2018

Climate Impact Far Beyond the Arctic


Arctic sea ice volume 1979-2018.png


October 2018


NASA Video / 2018 Arctic Sea Ice Ties for Sixth Lowest Minimum Extent on NASA Record


First Container Ship Crosses the Arctic


Melting Arctic ice lets world's biggest shipping firm complete first voyage through previously impenetrable Northeast Passage

  • Maersk sent a new ship across the polar sea for the first time
  • The route has historically been difficult to traverse because of thick sea ice
  • Global warming has melted much of the route, opening it up to trade ships


The Northern Sea Route could be a shorter route for journeys from East Asia to Europe than the Northwest Passage over Canada because it will likely be free of ice sooner due to climate change.

The container vessel, Venta Maersk, traveled from Vladivostok to St Petersburg over the northern top of Russia.

Experts say the new passage reduces the most commonly used East Asia-Europe route via the Suez Canal from 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometres) to 8,000 miles (12,800 kilometres), cutting transit time by 10-15 days.

Typically vessels taking this icy route have required an ice-breaker escort, but rising global temperatures are making the passage easier to traverse.

The Northern Sea Route is becoming appealing to the shipping industry, especially to the oil and gas sector, as it is much shorter than the Suez Canal.

The reduction of ice in the Arctic and design of new ice-breaking commercial vessels make the transportation of abundant Arctic natural energy resources commercially viable.


By Kieran Mulvaney / Washington Post Magazine


September / August 2018


Via The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer.

This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere.

One meteorologist described the loss of ice as “scary”. Others said it could force scientists to revise their theories about which part of the Arctic will withstand warming the longest.

The sea off the north coast of Greenland is normally so frozen that it was referred to, until recently, as “the last ice area” because it was assumed that this would be the final northern holdout against the melting effects of a hotter planet...


July / June / May 2018


Arctic Sea Ice News.png


Peruse scientifically ...

Arctic Sea-ice retreat
Short-, Mid-, Long-term






Arctic ice trendline.jpg


 

Skeptical?



A review, the ongoing loss of Arctic sea ice across all seasons is examined, including data sets over time based on satellite retrievals, atmospheric reanalysis, climate-model simulations and earth science reporting.


National Academy of Sciences / Reporting that “[s]ince the satellite record began in 1978 … the yearly minimum Arctic sea ice extent (which occurs in early to mid-September) has decreased by more than 40% ... Leveraging scientific credibility about Arctic sea ice trends in a polarized political environment.


April 2018


What Extremely Warm Winters Mean for the Future of the Arctic

In an interview with Yale Environment 360, polar scientist Mark Serreze talks about the rapid changes he has witnessed over more than three decades of working in the Arctic and the future stability of the region if temperatures continue to climb.

We’re going to have an Arctic that, except for winter, you look at it from satellite and it’s going to be a blue ocean. It will have lost its ice. Not just its sea ice, but a lot of the permafrost will be thawed, the snow cover season will be much shorter. The thing is, when you’re thinking about the Arctic, the Arctic’s soul is its ice. When you lose that ice, the Arctic loses its soul.


March 2018


"It was bigger than sending a man to the moon" -- Russia-US drilling in a Warming Arctic (2011)

The big story, the 'follow the money' story, the story of oil/gas profits and global environmental costs
Rosneft/Exxon's $500 billion deal, Rex Tillerson appointment as US Secretary of State, political-economic reality


Exxon is abandoning Russian projects

Via the Wall Street Journal -- Exxon-Russian Plans for drilling in Arctic ocean oil fields end -- temporarily.

Withdrawal from joint venture brokered by Tillerson for now marks end of energy giant’s hopes of drilling in Arctic ocean oil fields

The Texas oil giant said in a regulatory filing late Wednesday that it would walk away from the joint venture with state-controlled PAO Rosneft to seek oil in the ice-choked waters of the Kara Sea, a hard-fought deal signed in 2012 by the company’s former chief executive, Rex Tillerson, now U.S. secretary of state.

Mr. Tillerson had touted the agreement as a breakthrough giving Exxon access to one of the world’s great unexplored oil and gas basins. The company reportedly spent about $700 million to drill the first well, likely making it the most expensive ever. It struck oil, according to Rosneft...

Exxon declined to comment on the reasons for its decision. The company said it would formally begin to withdraw from the Rosneft joint ventures this year, taking a $200 million loss after taxes.

Rosneft said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that it would support the return of Exxon to the projects in the future if it were legally possible.


Exxon-Russia abandon oil drilling in Arctic-March 1, 2018.png



Via Medium / "Follow the Money from the Rosneft/Exxon $500 billion deal"

Igor Sechin described the ambition of the (2011 announced) Rosneft/Exxon project as “bigger than sending man to outer space or flying to the moon.”
“Experts say that this project, in terms of its ambitions, exceeds sending man into outer space or flying to the moon,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, an architect of the partnership, told a briefing for analysts in New York.


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February 2018


How's the Weather?

Extreme, "Really Extreme"




Arctic Sea Ice Feb 2018 NASA.jpg


Arctic CAB sea ice monitor-Feb 2018 update (2013-2018).jpg



https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Arctic_ice_Sep_1984_-_Sep_2016_vid.png

Watch the Arctic Sea Ice seasonally shrink in this NASA time-lapse vid


Arctic ice Sep 1984 - Sep 2016 vid.png


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Arctic temperatures are soaring

by Joe Romm


It was the warmest December on record in the Arctic, and 2018 has already set a string of records for lowest Arctic sea ice.

Unfortunately for America and the rest of the planet, the best science makes clear that what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. “We long ago anticipated that warming would be greatest in the Arctic owing to the vicious cycle of melting ice and warming oceans,” climate scientist Mike Mann told ThinkProgress via email.

“But what we didn’t anticipate is the way that changing wind patterns could accelerate that process — and along with it, a host of nasty associated surprises.”

Surprises include “including slowing down of ocean currents, and whacky weather patterns in North America associated with weather extremes like droughts, wildfires, floods, and superstorms.”

And those are in addition to the “nasty” associated impacts that scientists have long predicted would result from Arctic warming, such as faster melting of the land-based Greenland ice sheet, which in turn drives the speed up in sea level rise that scientists reported last week (Feb. 12, 2018)....


  • John Abraham, professor of thermal sciences: “The temperatures in the Arctic are off the chart. This matters for the rest of us because this is the time of year when the Arctic ice should be growing. But it isn’t growing like it should. So, this summer, there will be less ice and more open waters that will lead to more warming. We've started a feedback loop that we cannot stop.”


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January 2018


National Geographic / Pictures show Climate Change's dramatic Arctic impact

A photographer’s work with Greenpeace has given him a front-row seat to twenty years of drastic change


Arctic-100 yrs difference.jpg


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December 2017

Ghosts of the Arctic (Vimeo/HD)


The Northwest Passage Opens: The Future of Ice-Free Arctic Commercialization Comes into View

The Arctic as we once knew it is no more

Scientists Thought an Alaskan Weather Station Was Broken...

It Was Just Climate Change


November/October 2017



As the Ice Retreats -- Oil/Gas Pressures in the North Accelerate

New Risks and Volatile Change


NOAA / Arctic Report Card

Listen to the serving Commandant of the US Coast Guard:

Adm. Paul Zukunft, U.S. Coast Guard commandant / July 25, 2017: (WGBH Boston / National Public Radio Interview)


~ Arctic Militarization?
~ Surface ships in the Arctic, the US/Russian future on oil/gas resources...
~ The US is only Arctic nation that has not ratified the Convention of the Law of the Sea
~ EEZs / Exclusive Economic Zones / Off-shore extended continent shelf -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone
~ Territorial Waters -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters


September / August 2017


> Russian tanker sails through Arctic without icebreaker for first time


Trump 'Reluctantly' Signs Sanctions Bill, US/Russia Arctic Gas/Oil Ventures Blocked


July / June 2017


Time to Drill?


Trump: Time to Open the Arctic to Drilling

US Senate Passes Russia Sanctions Deal

In effect, action by the US Congress to continue/extend sanctions has the effect of blocking ExxonMobile-Rosneft Arctic drilling
Exxon and Rosneft offshore exploration partnership plans to invest as much as $500 billion in developing Russia's vast energy reserves in the Arctic and Black seas


Head of the US House Committee on Science: Climate Change is "Beneficial"



Lamar Smith Denial Offensive.png


Lamar Smith's New Line: It's time to Celebrate

WASHINGTON / HuffPost / July 24, 2017 — Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) — who has spent his career cozying up to fossil fuel interests, dismissing the threat of climate change and harassing federal climate scientists — is now arguing that pumping the atmosphere full of carbon dioxide is “beneficial” to global trade, crop production and the lushness of the planet.

Rather than buying into “hysteria,” Americans should be celebrating the plus sides of a changing climate, Smith argues in an op-ed published July 24th in The Daily Signal, a news website published by the conservative Heritage Foundation.


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June 8 / DC Law Firm's Russian Clients and New Presidential FBI Appointee

Exxon-Rosnoft, Tillerson-Putin, and a Sanctions Timeline from the Business Insider


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“Roast the Arctic and you create a mess everywhere on Earth...”

-- Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer


Arctic Could Be Ice Free by 2040

Phenomenal Melt Season
Annual Arctic Sea Ice Minimum 1979-2016 with Area Graph


Interactive Map / Arctic Sea Ice Area


Arctic Sea Ice Area graphic thru 2016.png


Arctic annual average temp 1981-2010.jpg


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May 2017


Why Care About Black Carbon?

Soot / 'Black Carbon' in the Arctic


Rex Tillerson speaks of 'how the Trump administration will approach the issue of climate change'

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-11/arctic-is-changing-as-u-s-mulls-climate-policy-tillerson-says
https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/05/270813.htm


Tillerson’s appearance in Alaska at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting comes two days after the White House said Trump would postpone a decision over whether to pull out of the landmark Paris climate accord until after he meets world leaders at the Group of Seven summit later this month.

“We are currently reviewing several important policies, including how the Trump administration will approach the issue of climate change,” Tillerson said Thursday during his remarks to the Arctic Council, which also includes Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. “We’re going to work to make the right decision for the United States.”

Tillerson called for vigilance in protecting the Arctic’s “fragile environment.” The U.S. will continue to be an active member of the council," he said. “The Arctic region has been facing unprecedented change and challenges.”

Initially (in their joint "Fairbanks Declaration" statement that accompanied the Council's meeting,) the U.S. objected to references to climate change, renewable energy and United Nations sustainability goals in an early draft of the joint statement, said Rene Soderman, senior adviser for Arctic cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland. The council reworked the wording and convinced the U.S. to accept the changes.

“We were able to push the U.S. back as much as possible,” Soderman said.


Dollars & the Arctic


Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic: Summary for Policy-makers


The Arctic Transformed

The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on Earth. Over the past 50 years, the Arctic’s temperature has risen by more than twice the global average.

The Arctic Council is the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination, and interaction among the Arctic States, Arctic indigenous peoples, and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues, in particular on issues of environmental protection and sustainable development in the Arctic. Established in 1996, the Arctic Council is composed of eight Member States (Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the United States). It also includes six organizations representing Arctic indigenous peoples.


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April 2017



March 2017


http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/03/vladimir-putin-visits-arctic-reaffirm-russia-claim-170329200545418.html

On a tour on the Franz Josef Land archipelago, a sprawling collection of islands where the Russian military has recently built a new runway and worked to open a permanent base, Putin emphasised on Wednesday (March 29) the need to protect Russia's economic and security interests in the Arctic.

"Natural resources, which are of paramount importance for the Russian economy, are concentrated in this region," Putin said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.

Putin said current estimates put the value of the Arctic's mineral riches at $30 trillion.


https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2017/01/knockin-russias-arctic-door
http://www.uarctic.org/news/2017/1/invitation-to-the-high-north-dialogue-conference-2017
http://arcticjournal.com/politics/3058/northern-approaches



NASA's Earth Science News Team / Arctic sea ice appears to have reached on March 7 a record low wintertime maximum extent, according to scientists at NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado. And on the opposite side of the planet, on March 3 sea ice around Antarctica hit its lowest extent ever recorded by satellites at the end of summer in the Southern Hemisphere...


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February 11, 2017 via CS Monitor — Records are shattering left and right across the Arctic, much like the ever-dwindling sea ice that once covered the entire Arctic Ocean.

First, the facts. January sea ice area has never been so small. In November, the coverage fell short of average by an area the size of the eastern half of the United States. Northeast Greenland had its warmest February day ever (by almost four degrees). The current heat wave brought temperatures near the North Pole to 50 degrees above average...

“We’re still trying to figure out what is happening here,” Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist with the Colorado-based Snow and Ice Data Center that compiles and reports the history of Arctic ice conditions.

“The ridiculously warm temperatures in the Arctic during October and November this year are off the charts over our 68 years of measurements,” Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at Rutgers University...

Everyone agrees that "something is very, very wrong with the Arctic climate"...

“[A]fter studying the Arctic and its climate for three and a half decades, I have concluded that what has happened over the last year goes beyond even the extreme,” wrote Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., in an "Crazy times in the Arctic" article for Earth magazine.

The number of freezing degree days is far lower than any other period on record.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C4Lj3gcWIAE6dqF.jpg


Between 1980 and 2016 the amount of summer ice in cubic kilometers has decreased by an estimated 72 percent...




January 19, 2017
Arctic Sea Ice, Record Low
HotAgain.JPG


Northern Routes Open as Ice Retreats

Russia pushes into the Arctic

Exxon Mobil could tap huge Arctic assets if US - Russian relations thaw


Former Exxon CEO and new US Sec of State Rex Tillerson meets with Russian President Putin
during 2012 negotiations to move forward with joint oil/gas ventures described as historic


Tillerson-Putin mtg.jpg


Read More re: Energy Production in the Arctic


http://interfaxenergy.com/gasdaily/article/22688/sakhalin-1-the-likely-source-for-sakhalin-2s-third-train
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/rex-tillerson-supporters-russia-exxon-ties-232524


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February 2017


ExxonMobil CEO closer to confirmation as US Secretary of State


Ex-Chief of ExxonMobil Testifies Before US Congress

  • President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said he believes the risks of climate change "could be serious enough that action should be taken,” but he did not elaborate on what that action should be.

Tillerson testified that he formed his views “over about 20 years as an engineer and a scientist, understanding the evolution of the science.” Ultimately, he said, he concluded that increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere are having an effect on the earth’s climate. But he added, “Our ability to predict that effect is very limited,” and precisely what actions nations should take “seems to be the largest area of debate existing in the public discourse.”


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December 2016



Geopolitics in the Arctic

Russia and the United States are moving with force to claim fossil fuel exploration and production rights
Canada, China, Norway and additional countries are look to join into the Arctic resource exploration
A 'gas/oil' resource rush is imminent despite inherent dangers and impacts on global climate
The critical, strategic demand continues for New Definitions of National and Global Security



  • A preliminary assessment by the US Geological Survey suggests the Arctic seabed may hold as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves.
  • By one USGS reported estimate, 400 billion barrels of oil might lie beneath the Arctic seabed.



A Final Presidential Decision Re: Arctic Oil/Gas

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-12-19/obama-said-to-use-1953-law-to-block-drilling-in-arctic-atlantic

December 19, 2016 / President Barack Obama prepares to leave office and prepares to block the sale of new offshore drilling rights in most of the U.S. Arctic and parts of the Atlantic. The executive order that could indefinitely restrict oil production there, according to people familiar with the decision.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/18/obama-blocks-new-oil-gas-drilling-in-arctic-ocean.html


Arctic drilling ban Dec 21, 2016.png


Arctic Sea Ice.png


Arctic Sea Ice at Record Lows / December 2016

http://phys.org/news/2016-12-state-arcticlonger-seasons-thinning-sea.html

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13122016/arctic-melting-climate-change-noaa-science

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=89223

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card


Greennews3.png


Not Good News, Arctic Sea Ice News

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2016/09/2016-ties-with-2007-for-second-lowest-arctic-sea-ice-minimum/


https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--PEakRtPE--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/xyasmhqdqgrzxvvqd3is.gif


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/17/the-north-pole-is-an-insane-36-degrees-warmer-than-normal-as-winter-descends/



First Cruise Ship Crossing the Ice-Free Arctic Passage


Crystal Serenity.png



The beginning of cruise ships plying the formerly isolated, ice-bound region... prompting calls for a clamp-down to prevent Titanic-style accidents and the pollution of fragile eco-systems resulting from accidents -- and new gas/oil production.

Arctic nations begin to consider limiting the size of vessels and banning the use of heavy fuel oil in the region after first luxury cruise ship, Crystal Serenity, sailed through the Arctic from Alaska, across Canada's newly navigable Northwest Passage, to New York in the summer of 2016.

Next up, commercial shipping traffic, container ships ...


- http://container-news.com/arctic-ocean-shipping-routes-open-months/


Shipping industry report:

Sea-ice is in a committed, long-term decline as the polar north warms.

This year looks on course to be the second lowest in the satellite record. Researchers do not see this trend being reversed anytime soon.

“If we experience a 2-degree increase in global temperatures, we will get close to an Arctic that is effectively ice-free for part of the year; that’s less than a million sq km of ice cover,” said Reading University's Dr. Ed Hawkins.

“So, even if future emissions are consistent with the Paris agreement, it will of course mean shipping routes will be more open. Not every year, but more regularly than they are now.”

“Open water vessels won’t be hugging the Russian coast quite so much, and ice-strengthened ships will be going right over the pole,” he told BBC News.

Saving time

The incentives are clear: if vessels can transit the Arctic, they will shave many days off their journey times between the Pacific and North Atlantic ports, and save fuel.

In addition, by plotting a more central course, they can avoid the fees they would otherwise be charged for going through Siberian waters.

The team has been looking at how the opportunities might evolve in the decades ahead.

The group used five prominent climate computer models and essentially trained them to better reflect the distribution of Arctic sea-ice as seen in current observations.

They then ran those models forward through the century under different emissions scenarios, to gauge where and how frequently shipping routes would become navigable.



"The Northwest Passage"


Polar Sea - Netflix.jpg


2015

- http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sanctions-russia-arctic-shipping-idUSKBN0KV17520150122


2014/2013

- http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-arctic-shipping-idUSBRE92718420130308


2012/2011

- http://www.reuters.com/article/us-exxon-rosneft-idUSBRE83H0UE20120418

Oil major ExxonMobil (XOM.N) and Russia's Rosneft ROSN.M unveiled an offshore exploration partnership on Wednesday that could invest upward of $500 billion in developing Russia's vast energy reserves in the Arctic and Black Sea.

The deal, between the world's largest listed oil firm and the world's top oil producing nation, was the product of nearly a year of talks and came about despite a history of mutual distrust between Washington and Moscow dating back to the Cold War and recent difficulties for other Western firms in Russia.

"Experts say that this project, in terms of its ambitions, exceeds sending man into outer space or flying to the moon," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, a key architect of the partnership, told a briefing for analysts in New York.

Under the deal, signed in Moscow on Monday, Exxon and state-controlled Rosneft will seek to develop three fields in the Arctic with recoverable hydrocarbon reserves estimated at 85 billion barrels in oil-equivalent terms.

A final investment decision on the projects in the Kara Sea, in the centre of Russia's north coast, is expected in 2016-17, Rosneft said in a video presentation at the event, which was hosted by Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson and Rosneft President Eduard Khudainatov.


- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/06/us-russia-political-tensions-arctic

- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/oct/05/melting-arctic-ice-supertankers


The Arctic & Geopolitics

 

Multiplying Global Risks

NYT / October 2005 / Revkin et al. / As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound

All told, one quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas resources lies in the Arctic, according to the United States Geological Survey...


Geopolitical Issues (a new "Great Game" via GreenPolicy's associated site, Strategic Demands)

• https://www.strategicdemands.com/eurasia-great-game/
• http://strategicdemands.com/?s=eurasia


Whole Earth / Planet Citizens

"It's All Connected"
• http://strategicdemands.com/new-definitions-of-security/
• https://www.strategicdemands.com/environmental-security/
• http://www.planetcitizens.org


 


Arctic mdl 1990-2010.jpg


 

 

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Arctic-asia mdl 1990-2010.jpg



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