An oil spill would have drastic consequences for the pristine Arctic environment

Given the increased interest in drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic as the area becomes more accessible in a changing climate, concern is also growing about the dangers an accident could pose to the fragile environment of the “high North”.  An editorial in the publication NATURE argues that we need a binding agreement like the Antarctic Treaty to protect the Arctic from pollution.

Alaska and south America are the regions where the glaciers are currently melting fastest, according to a report released in Cancun. I experienced that first-hand in Alaska in 2008, when I started the ice blog.

This is one of the pictures taken from the Begich Boggs glacier visitors centre. There’s a visiting centre purpose built to see the Portage glacier – but where the glacier has retreated so far it’s no longer visible from this point at all.In 2008, we were told it had receded more than 2 miles in 70 years.
On the last official day of Cancun, the wrangling is still going on – same procedure as every year? A freelance colleague dropped in just now . “There doesn’t seem to be anything happening in Cancun”.. he said. Yeah, that seems to be the feeling. My colleague Nathan Witkop from the Living Planet programme is there. You might like to read
his latest summary while you’re waiting.
I’ve also been keeping an eye on the Global Ideas blog You might enjoy a look at that.
And if you are interested in watching some more pictures and video and reading/hearing from some researchers in the field, have a look at these pictures from Lars Hansen who took some great shots at the Zackenberg Monitoring Station in Greenland.
That will all help pass the time waiting for the Cancun closer…

I’ll never forget the beauty, the silence and the wonder of stepping out on the frozen Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea in Barrow, Alaska.

Ice Blog Archive Alaska 2008
Nor will I forget the tales of the Inupiat people of the changes to the ice and the consequences for wildlife, like polar bears and whales.
On the same trip, I visited Prince William Sound. That site of great natural beauty was also the location of the Exxon Valdez disaster, just over 20 years ago. At first sight, you don’t notice that, but underneath some of the rocks you find traces of oil, which takes a long, long time to break down in the cold Arctic waters.
So it’s with some concern that I follow the controversy over plans by Royal Dutch Shell to drill for billions of barrels of oil in the Chukchi Sea this year. The sea lies between Alaska and Siberia and is thought to hold large quantities of oil and gas.
The US authorities conditionally approved the plans to drill three exploratory wells in December 2009. The decision was delayed on the grounds that the area is a prime habitat for polar bears, now recognized by US law as a threatened species.
Now indigenous and conservationist groups are suing to stop the project.
Concern from the Northern Alaska Environmental Centre
The oil industry has a strong position in Alaska. It provides around 40% of the state’s tax revenue and provides a lot of funding for the University of Alaska. Shell says it is working to improve its environmental impact. But the environment lobby is not happy that enough is known about the potential impacts of further drilling and the changes being brought by climate change. With the race to get at the Arctic’s natural resources speeding up as the region warms – more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet – the risk of development without adequate research on environmental impacts seems to me to be increasing all the time.
“Shell comes under attack in Alaska” – in THE GUARDIAN

(No emissions from this one for a while)

Professor Jean-Claude Gascard from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, heads the EU’s Damocles project, identifying the challenges from climate change. He gave a very sobering summary of the state of the Arctic sea ice and confirmed there is virtually no chance of reversing the current warming trend. Only several extremely severe winters could do that, and the scientific community is not expecting that.
Scientists tend to be reluctant to come out with anything they can’t prove, and Prof. Gascard summed up the main elements behind this conviction. Sea ice extent, depths, age and drift are key factors, as well as the air temperature and the number of “freezing degree days”.
By 2002 the ice was at a minimum based on some 50 years of observation. In 2005, there was no “replenishment” of older, multi-year ice exiting the Arctic ocean. This, Prof. Gascard describes as a “tipping point”.
The ice thickness has decreased over a wide area from more than 3 metres 20 or 30 years ago to around 1.5 metres. I remember my trip out on the sea ice in Barrow, Alaska, with Dr. Chris Petrich and the Climate Change College “ambassadors”. I can hear Erika Naga reading out the measurement “1 metre 40”, and the Inupiat telling us how it used to be much thicker.
The ice is melted in various ways: through warmer water from the Atlantic and Pacific underneath, heat from storms and increased radiation from above.
2007 of course was the year that really made everybody wake up. When the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Polarstern went out to set up ice platforms, there was no ice in their target area. The Tara, which has been frozen in and drifting with the ice to compare ice drift with the “Fram” expedition has been drifting three times faster than her predecessor. And the sea ice reached its minimum. 2008 saw almost the same negative record.
Sea ice reflects much more heat back into the atmosphere than water, (albedo effect) which is much darker and absorbs it, exacerbating the warming, in what’s called a “feedback loop”. Again, I was reminded of our trip on the Chukchi Sea with Chris Petrich from the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, who is collecting data on this to be put into global models.
And the number of “freezing degree days” has dropped massively in the last few years.
Professor Gascard’s summary of all this is available online on the Arctic Frontiers site.

And if you have the time and the inclination, have a(nother?) listen to the feature on my trip onto the sea ice with the Climate Change College.

Tromsö today (the days are getting lighter):

I took this photo in the Black Forest just under two weeks ago. There has been a fair bit of snow on higher ground in some areas of Germany.
But right now, Christmas is right around the corner and it’s grey and very mild here in Bonn on the banks of the Rhine. Yesterday, the days started to get longer again. But I can’t say it’s noticeable in this kind of weather. I have a Danish colleague, and her joke this morning was that climate change was making Germany feel like it was north of the polar circle – as far as the lack of light in winter is concerned! Temperature-wise, it seems to be doing the opposite. There’s far too much fresh green in the garden for December in this part of the world.
Meanwhile, my friend in Seattle enjoyed an unusual fall of snow.I wonder if all the people in those parts of the US struggling against extreme cold and heavy snowfall still play “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”? Somehow I doubt it. If any of you are reading this, drop me a mail or put in a comment with your views. Somehow people are reluctant to enter public comments on weblogs, but I’m glad you still send mails.
Helen in Perth, Australia, has asked when the Ice Blogger will be out on the trail again. Still working on the travel plans, Helen, but as our IPY project is still running, there will be more blog entries from icy areas in the course of 2009.
There will be an important Arctic conference in Tromsö, Norway in January: Arctic Frontiers. The organisation has an interesting website:
Website for the Arctic Frontiers network
All eyes will be turned to the USA in the New Year with Barack Obama taking office. It looks as if there’s reason to hope for a major turnaround in US climate policy.
IPS Earth Alert on Scientists in new US administration
If you have time to listen to a half-hour of radio feature over the festive period, you can hear the long version of this year’s original Ice Blog trip to Arctic Alaska with the Climate Change College.
Unbaking Alaska on Deutsche Welle’s Living Planet
Happy Christmas when it comes!