Rapidly melting ice in the Far North alarms climatologists and lures nations into competition for newly accessible trade routes and resources.

Discover Magazine
12.12.2007
4. Arctic Thaw
by Josie Glausiusz

On August 2, a pair of 18-ton Russian submersibles, Mir-I and Mir-II, plunged more than two miles down into the Arctic Ocean and planted a titanium capsule containing their nation's flag on the seabed at the North Pole. Russian parliamentarian and explorer Artur Chilingarov, who rode in the first of the two mini-submarines to reach the ocean floor, declared, "Our task is to remind the world that Russia is a great Arctic and scientific power," to which Canadian foreign minister Peter MacKay retorted: "This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory.'"

The posturing is part of a deadly serious race. As the melting of the Arctic sea ice accelerates, countries with claims on Arctic Circle territory-including not just Russia and Canada but also the United States, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland-are scrambling to send mapping expeditions to the icy North. Within days of the twin Mir descent, the U.S. Coast Guard had dispatched the icebreaker Healy north of Alaska to spend nearly a month mapping the Arctic Ocean's floor; Canada commenced a 10-day military exercise called a "sovereignty operation"; and the Danes sent scientists to map the seabed north of Greenland. The prizes are not just the much-vaunted oil and gas reserves that lie beneath the Arctic but also access to the Northwest Passage, a shipping route between the West and Asia across the Arctic that year-round ice packs have long made impassable. If the Northwest Passage were to open, the route from London to Tokyo would be 3,000 miles shorter than the one through the Suez Canal.

In September, a scientific expedition was under way on a two-and-a-half month voyage in the North Polar Sea. The research vessel Polarstern was carrying 50 scientists from 10 nations, including the United States, Germany, Russia, China, and Japan. In addition to measuring currents, temperatures, and seawater salinity, the scientists calculated sea ice thickness with the aid of a torpedo-shaped instrument, towed by a helicopter, that beamed electromagnetic waves at the ice surface. With this "EM Bird," the team discovered that large tracts of Arctic sea ice are now only three feet deep-half the thickness of a mere six years ago.