Just a few years ago, newspapers were full of reports stating that tensions between Canada and Denmark were aboil due to a dispute dating back to 1973 over tiny Hans Island, a rocky outcropping in the Nares Strait between Canada and Greenland. Today, both countries still claim possession of the barren island, yet they’ve been […]
This map of the various populations in the Arctic, entitled “The Arctic: Life Beyond the Arctic Circle,” comes from RIA Novosti’s Infographics website. Each orange circle tells the relative strength of the local population, followed by its amount. For instance, in Alaska, there are “649 тыс. человек,” meaning 649,000 people. However, what the map doesn’t […]
Alaska’s three Congressional representatives – Senators Mark Begich (D) and Lisa Murkowski (R) and Representative Don Young (R) – are supporting Shell’s continued efforts to begin drilling for offshore oil on Alaska’s North Slope this July. On Monday, at a Chamber of Commerce lunch in Anchorage, the three solicited questions from an audience of several […]
SIPRI’s report in March 2010 highlighted China’s growing desire to develop its Arctic capabilities. Yet China is also collaborating with other countries to possibly expand its role in the Arctic. Two of those countries are North Korea and Iceland, neither of which have Arctic coastlines, but which are far enough north to give China greater […]
The ramifications of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are now hitting home in the Arctic. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has ordered a temporary nationwide freeze on issuances of new permits for exploratory oil well drilling. The freeze will last until the White House has evaluated the Department of the Interior’s study on the […]
The Cable, a blog about the inner workings of the U.S. foreign policy machine run by Foreign Affairs magazine, has posted a sort of “who’s who” of America’s Arctic policymakers. There is no one person in charge of Arctic policy in the U.S. government, and instead, policymaking responsibilities are scattered throughout various departments. This confusion […]
On Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke to a group of retired U.S. navy members. He noted, “I think the concerns about the Arctic are real.” A member of the audience asked him about his concerns regarding Russia’s sizeable ice breaker fleet. The country has 18 icebreakers, compared to the U.S.’ 2-4 icebreakers, depending […]
While the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico off of the coast of Louisiana may be thousands of miles from the Arctic, the consequences will be felt in the frigid waters of the north. In Canada, industry observers have asked the National Energy Board to delay a hearing on […]
Putin certainly has a penchant for megafauna. Over the past few years, he has been photographed with horses and tigers in a variety of poses and has stopped the baby seal slaughter in Russia. Now, he is off to the Arctic to save the polar bear. Just one day after Russia and Norway signed the […]
After forty years of deadlock, Russian and Norway have finally come to an agreement on the delimitation of the maritime border in the Barents Sea. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had traveled to Oslo with the goal of discussing energy, economic cooperation, and cross-border cooperation. Both countries tried to keep the potential Barents Sea agreement out […]
The NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day is of the Arctic Sea Ice Extent from 2009 to 2010. The image on the left is from September, when the sea ice usually reaches its minimum. On the right is the sea ice maximum for the year, which usually occurs during the month of March. Sea […]
Even the Arctic has not emerged unscathed from the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull. A conference that was to be held in Moscow, Russia, called “The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue,” has been postponed until September due to the thousands of flight disruptions. The Russian Geographical Society will host the event, which is to supposed to mark the […]
In the past week, there have been announcements from several science agencies regarding projects and missions in the Arctic. On Thursday, April 8, the European Space Agency launched the CryoSat-2 satellite from Kazakhstan. CryoSat-2 cost €140 million to manufacture and was a replica of the first CryoSat, which crashed unspectacularly into the Arctic Ocean in […]
Lawson Brigham, professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, visited UCLA on Friday to speak as part of the Tod Spieker Colloquium Series. Brigham brings an interesting perspective to any discussion on the Arctic thanks to his academic credentials and maritime experience. He received a PhD from Cambridge in polar […]
Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, perhaps the most-mentioned person on this blog, is heading north to his country’s Arctic. He will spend one day and Resolute Bay and another day at Borden Ice Camp to support Canadian scientific efforts to demonstrate the validity of their government’s sovereignty claims over parts of the resource-rich Arctic Ocean. […]