The Arctic Seas
The Arctic Seas

Author: Yvonne Herman

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 887

ISBN-13: 1461306779

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The Arctic region has long held a fascination for explorers and scientists of many countries. Despite the numerous voyages of exploration, the na ture of the central Arctic was unknown only 90 years ago; it was believed to be a shallow sea dotted with islands. During Nansen's historic voyage on the polarship Fram, which commenced in 1893, the great depth of the central basin was discovered. In the Soviet Union, investigation of the Arctic Ocean became national policy after 1917. Today research at several scientific institutions there is devoted primarily to the study of the North Polar Ocean and seas. The systematic exploration of the Arctic by the United States com menced in 1951. Research has been conducted year-round from drifting ice islands, which are tabular fragments of glacier ice that break away from ice shelves. Most frequently, ice islands originate off the northern coast of Ellesmere Island. These research platforms are occupied as weather sta tions, as well as for oceanographic and geophysical studies. Several inter national projects, conducted by Canadian, European, and U. S. groups, have been underway during the last three decades. Although much new data have accumulated since the publication of the Marine Geology and Oceanography of the Arctic Seas volume in 1974 (Yvonne Herman, ed. ), in various fields of polar research-including present-day ice cover, hydrogra phy, fauna, flora, and geology-many questions remain to be answered.

A History of the Arctic
A History of the Arctic

Author: John McCannon

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2013-02-15

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1780230761

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Bitter cold and constant snow. Polar bears, seals, and killer whales. Victor Frankenstein chasing his monstrous creation across icy terrain in a dogsled. The arctic calls to mind a myriad different images. Consisting of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, the United States, Russia, Greenland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, the arctic possesses a unique ecosystem—temperatures average negative 29 degrees Fahrenheit in winter and rarely rise above freezing in summer—and the indigenous peoples and cultures that live in the region have had to adapt to the harsh weather conditions. As global temperatures rise, the arctic is facing an environmental crisis, with melting glaciers causing grave concern around the world. But for all the renown of this frozen region, the arctic remains far from perfectly understood. In A History of the Arctic, award-winning polar historian John McCannon provides an engaging overview of the region that spans from the Stone Age to the present. McCannon discusses polar exploration and science, nation-building, diplomacy, environmental issues, and climate change, and the role indigenous populations have played in the arctic’s story. Chronicling the history of each arctic nation, he details the many failed searches for a Northwest Passage and the territorial claims that hamper use of these waterways. He also explores the resources found in the arctic—oil, natural gas, minerals, fresh water, and fish—and describes the importance they hold as these resources are depleted elsewhere, as well as the challenges we face in extracting them. A timely assessment of current diplomatic and environmental realities, as well as the dire risks the region now faces, A History of the Arctic is a thoroughly engrossing book on the past—and future—of the top of the world.

Environmental Security in the Arctic Ocean
Environmental Security in the Arctic Ocean

Author: Paul Arthur Berkman

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-11-29

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 9400747136

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This seminal book results from a NATO Advanced Research Workshop at the University of Cambridge with Russian co-directorship, enabling the first formal dialogue between NATO and Russia about security issues in the Arctic Ocean. Involving interdisciplinary participation with experts from 17 nations, including all of the Arctic states, this workshop itself reflects progress in Arctic cooperation and collaboration. Interests now are awakening globally to take advantage of extensive energy, shipping, fishing and tourism opportunities in the Arctic Ocean as it is being transformed from a permanent sea-ice cap to a seasonally ice-free sea. This environmental state-change is introducing inherent risks of political, economic and cultural instabilities that are centralized among the Arctic states and indigenous peoples with repercussions globally. Responding with urgency, environmental security is presented as an "integrated approach for assessing and responding to the risks as well as the opportunities generated by an environmental state-change." In this book – diverse perspectives on environmental security in the Arctic Ocean are shared in chapters from high-level diplomats, parliamentarians and government officials of Arctic and non-Arctic states; leaders of Arctic indigenous peoples organizations; international law advisors from Arctic states as well as the United Nations; directors of inter-governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations; managers of multi-national corporations; political scientists, historians and economists; along with Earth system scientists and oceanographers. Building on the “common arctic issues” of “sustainable development and environmental protection” established by the Arctic Council – environmental security offers an holistic approach to assess opportunities and risks as well as develop infrastructure responses with law of the sea as the key “international legal framework” to “promote the peaceful uses” of the Arctic Ocean. With vision for future generations, environmental security is a path to balance national interests and common interests in the Arctic Ocean for the lasting benefit of all.

Arctic International Relations
Arctic International Relations

Author: Jeremy Wong

Publisher:

Published: 2014-12-01

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 9780901021250

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Recent Arctic physical and environmental changes, especially the retreat of Arctic sea ice, have facilitated a growth in human activity in the region, presented opportunities for resource exploitation and commercial shipping, reinvigorated territorial disputes between countries bordering the Arctic Ocean, and prompted initiatives to enhance international cooperation, improve regional governance and provide legal and regulatory frameworks to ensure sustainable regional development. This annotated bibliography reproduces over 850 records of material held in the collections of the Library of Scott Polar Research Institute of relevance to recent social and political development in the Arctic, and is expected to be of interest to geographers, economists, political scientists, students of international relations, and general readers wishing to improve their knowledge of Arctic current affairs.

The Arctic
The Arctic

Author: Richard Vaughan

Publisher: Phoenix Mill ; Dover, N.H. : A. Sutton

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

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As well as describing the explorers and colonists of the Arctic and the various and thwarted attempts to forge a trade route through the North-West or North-East Passages - including those by the great sixteenth-century explorer Willem Barentsz, and by Henry Hudson, who died after a mutiny and whose name lives on in Hudson Bay - the book also studies the region's indigenous inhabitants, in particular the Inuit and Samoyed peoples. Archaeological evidence of early habitation is considered, including the remarkable Whale Alley on Yttygran Island in Russia's Far East, an Arctic 'Stonehenge'. Later chapters cover the history of whaling, of the Hudson's Bay Company and other fur traders, and of the exploitation of the Arctic's natural resources. In the twentieth century exploration for the purposes of scientific research began and conservation became an important issue.