...Audubon Alaska, Oceana, Ocean Conservancy and the Pew Environment Group partnered with scientists, local Arctic communities, and fishermen to call for a science-based, precautionary approach before any industrial fishing activities are allowed to expand into the Arctic Ocean. The coalition pushed for the ban....
Worsening Arctic storms threat to oil, ships (click here)
Arctic storms could worsen because of global warming in a threat to possible new businesses such as oil and gas exploration, fisheries or shipping, a study shows. “Large increases in the potential for extreme weather events were found along the entire southern rim of the Arctic Ocean, including the Barents, Bering and Beaufort Seas,” according to the study of Arctic weather by scientists in Norway and Britain. A shrinking of sea ice around the North Pole, which thawed to a record low in the summer of 2007, was likely to spawn more powerful storms that form only over open water and can cause hurricane-strength winds. Potential new businesses in the North — such as fisheries, oil and gas or shipping — would be vulnerable to extremes caused by polar lows and arctic fronts, the researchers wrote in the journal Climate Dynamics. Potential new short-cut shipping routes between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans along the northern coast of Canada and Alaska or Russia could turn out to be stormier than expected. reuters
