Science Journal: The U.S. maps claims to the spoils of global warming

[nam78_two]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118848493718613526.html?mod=fpa_editors_picks

SCIENCE JOURNAL
By ROBERT LEE HOTZ

U.S. Draws Map Of Rich Arctic Floor Ahead of Big Melt
August 31, 2007

In the Arctic this week, researchers aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy are mapping claims to the spoils of global warming.

North of Alaska, the 23 scientists of the Healy are gathering the data legally required to extend national territories across vast reaches of the mineral-rich seafloor usually blocked by Arctic ice. Fathom by fathom, multibeam sonar sensors mounted on the Healy's hull chart a submerged plateau called the Chukchi Cap, in a region that may contain 25% of the world's reserves of oil and natural gas.


North of Alaska, researchers aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy are gathering the data legally required to extend national territories across vast reaches of the mineral-rich seafloor usually blocked by Arctic ice.
In an era of climate change, these frozen assets are up for grabs, as melting ice allows detailed mapping and, one day perhaps, drilling.

Rising temperatures thinned the ice pack to a record low this month. If current trends continue, the Arctic could become ice-free in summer months by 2040, polar researchers say.

Indeed, the Healy is finding easy passage this week through the Arctic Ocean's archipelagos of ice. "We have had a remarkable amount of open water -- good for mapping, sad for the Arctic," said expedition chief scientist Larry Mayer, reached aboard the Healy, the head of the University of New Hampshire's Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping.

The $1 million Healy expedition is the third U.S. seafloor-mapping venture into the Arctic since 2003, prompted by provisions of the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The U.S. has never ratified the treaty but commissioned new seabed maps in case it ever is adopted. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has set a hearing on the treaty next month.

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More at the link.

[Tanuki]

1. Well, it sure helps explain why the oil companies have been

doing everything they can to ensure that global warming continues.

[alfredo]

2. I heard bush trumpet the benefits of the ice pack melting.

He said something to the effect that it would open the north to enterprise.

[nam78_two]

4. Yes he did or it might have been Cheney

It is revolting x(.

[alfredo]

5. Money trumps survival.

[SoCalDem]

3. Like staking a claim on your neighbor's empty lot..

knowing you plan to burn his house down:grr: