# Presentation: 909381

## NEXT GENERATION GPS AND ARCTIC RESEARCH SOLVING THE MYSTERIES OF THE ARCTIC

**25 January 2006**
**Mead Treadwell**
**Member, U.S. Arctic Research Commission**

## Slide 2

## Slide 3

## INSROP (1999)

**Notes:**
2. The Commissioners visited Aker Finnyards, a Finnish shipbuilding company with expertise in cruise ships, ferries and icebreakers. The company has built 60% of the world’s icebreakers, and pioneered the most advanced ship designs such as the multipurpose icebreaker (for research, oil spill combating and icebreaking) and the double-acting icebreaker-supply vessel. According to the “double-acting” concept, the icebreaker moves backwards through the most difficult ice conditions with a stern built for icebreaking, but forward through open water with a bow optimized for heavy seas. This design, accompanied by electric propulsion technology, allows for greater fuel efficiency and is likely to become the industry standard.
3. Much of the company’s R&D work is performed by a subsidiary, Aker Arctic Technology Inc, which maintains an ice model test facility within Helsinki. At the test facility, Aker Finnyard’s representatives presented designs of an icebreaker with a wide, asymmetrical hull. The vessel, already ten years in planning, will be able to cut a wider passage through the ice and therefore provide service to larger ships. (Currently, particularly large vessels require two icebreaker escorts.) 
4. The Commissioners observed that Aker Finnyards' knowledge of icebreaker technology may be the most sophisticated in the industry and speculated that the US Coast Guard could benefit by technology cooperation with Aker Finnyards.

## INSROP (1999)

**INSROP (1999)**

**Notes:**
2. The Commissioners visited Aker Finnyards, a Finnish shipbuilding company with expertise in cruise ships, ferries and icebreakers. The company has built 60% of the world’s icebreakers, and pioneered the most advanced ship designs such as the multipurpose icebreaker (for research, oil spill combating and icebreaking) and the double-acting icebreaker-supply vessel. According to the “double-acting” concept, the icebreaker moves backwards through the most difficult ice conditions with a stern built for icebreaking, but forward through open water with a bow optimized for heavy seas. This design, accompanied by electric propulsion technology, allows for greater fuel efficiency and is likely to become the industry standard.
3. Much of the company’s R&D work is performed by a subsidiary, Aker Arctic Technology Inc, which maintains an ice model test facility within Helsinki. At the test facility, Aker Finnyard’s representatives presented designs of an icebreaker with a wide, asymmetrical hull. The vessel, already ten years in planning, will be able to cut a wider passage through the ice and therefore provide service to larger ships. (Currently, particularly large vessels require two icebreaker escorts.) 
4. The Commissioners observed that Aker Finnyards' knowledge of icebreaker technology may be the most sophisticated in the industry and speculated that the US Coast Guard could benefit by technology cooperation with Aker Finnyards.

## ACIA Key Finding #6: Reduced sea ice is very likely to increase marine transport and access to resources.

**Notes:**
5B=blue background

## Slide 7

**Notes:**
2. The Commissioners visited Aker Finnyards, a Finnish shipbuilding company with expertise in cruise ships, ferries and icebreakers. The company has built 60% of the world’s icebreakers, and pioneered the most advanced ship designs such as the multipurpose icebreaker (for research, oil spill combating and icebreaking) and the double-acting icebreaker-supply vessel. According to the “double-acting” concept, the icebreaker moves backwards through the most difficult ice conditions with a stern built for icebreaking, but forward through open water with a bow optimized for heavy seas. This design, accompanied by electric propulsion technology, allows for greater fuel efficiency and is likely to become the industry standard.
3. Much of the company’s R&D work is performed by a subsidiary, Aker Arctic Technology Inc, which maintains an ice model test facility within Helsinki. At the test facility, Aker Finnyard’s representatives presented designs of an icebreaker with a wide, asymmetrical hull. The vessel, already ten years in planning, will be able to cut a wider passage through the ice and therefore provide service to larger ships. (Currently, particularly large vessels require two icebreaker escorts.) 
4. The Commissioners observed that Aker Finnyards' knowledge of icebreaker technology may be the most sophisticated in the industry and speculated that the US Coast Guard could benefit by technology cooperation with Aker Finnyards.

## Slide 8

##          Energy supply from Alaska

**Notes:**
November 29, 2004
$ 60 billion needed to keep oil production level over next decadeANCHORAGE - Chuck Pierce, the president of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, said that amount includes $30 billion in new exploration and up to $30 billion in current operations on the North Slope. That investment would keep North Slope production between 850,000 and 1 million barrels until a new natural gas pipeline can come online, he said. 

And the Washington Post Editorial ..... War and the Polar Bear By Charles KrauthammerFriday, November 9, 2001; Page A37 Here we are, for the second time in a decade, risking American lives in a war against an enemy fueled and fed by oil money. Here we are again decrying our dependence on oil from a particularly unstable, unfriendly part of the world. Here we are in desperate need of both energy conservation and new energy production.And here we see (in the Oct. 30 Post) that we may be prevented from drilling in the single most promising area on this continent because of a . . . polar bear treaty: "New Species Enters Debate on Arctic Oil; Polar Bear Agreement Cited by Drilling Foes."Now, I like polar bears as much as the next guy. I like pandas and caribou and all the furry cuddlies on God's good earth. But I also like people, particularly Americans, and particularly American soldiers. And I do not like seeing them shot and killed in wars that would be both more avoidable and more winnable were we not so disastrously dependent on energy supplies from a nasty part of the world with nasty people who use our oil money for nasty purposes.At a time when Washington should be working on a crash program of conservation and new drilling, a six-year-old report from the Fish and Wildlife Service is leaked in the hope that a 28-year-old polar bear treaty might derail drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.The Interior Department stoutly maintains that the polar bear agreement does not prohibit oil exploration. Alaska's Sen. Frank Murkowski points out that the 25,000 or so Arctic polar bears that he represents seem to be quite happily lolling around the existing oil drilling in Alaska.I too have little doubt that the polar bears will do fine, just as the caribou have thrived around the Prudhoe Bay field. But the whole debate is surreal. We are at war, are we not? Americans are fighting. In Washington and New York, nearly 5,000 have already been killed. Fifteen of the 19 murderers were Saudi. Their leader is Saudi. Most of their money is Saudi. And that same Saudi money funds the madrassas, the fundamentalist religious schools where poor Pakistani, Afghan and Arab children are inducted into the world of radical Islam and war against the American infidel.

**“****Demand for ice-class tankers has been steadily rising as oil exports from Russia’s Arctic regions become ever more attractive. The ordering pace...in the tanker industry... (reached) some $4.5 billion in (2004) alone.”**
**        ****	****     ****--American Bureau of Shipping, *****Surveyor*****, Summer 2005**

## Slide 11

## Retreat of Alaska glaciers totals almost half of the estimated total loss of mass by glaciers worldwide; the largest contribution by glacial melt to rising sea level for any region.

**Retreat of Alaska glaciers totals almost half of the estimated total loss of mass by glaciers worldwide; the largest contribution by glacial melt to rising sea level for any region.**

## 23 August 1994 near the North Pole

**23 August 1994 near the North Pole**
**Historic Rendezvous: *****Polar Sea,***** *****Louis S. St-Laurent, & Yamal****** ***

## Slide 14

## An extended Continental Shelf for Russia beyond 200 nautical miles distance

**Notes:**
In August, Canada spent C$ 4.9m (pounds 2.2m) in a show of force, sending hundreds of troops, helicopters, a frigate and an ice-breaker on a training exercise in search of mock satellite debris. Bad weather grounded planes, two soldiers were lost for a night and a fire on an ageing Sea King helicopter exposed the limits of the present force. This year, the government has approved the launching of the Radarsat II to provide high-resolution surveillance across the Arctic and monitor ships on the surface.Canada's Defence Minister, Bill Graham, was well aware global warming has added a new urgency to claims in the Arctic. " It has created new possibilities and new threats," he told The New York Times. "We need more resources up there and we are going to look for ways to deploy them. The sense is that now is the time." The government has allocated C$ 70m for its own underwater mapping. One Canadian diplomat says: "To stake a territorial claim, you must be able to demonstrate you can actively patrol and enforce it, if necessary militarily."Beneath the pack ice are the nuclear submarines of Russia, patrolling the dark water. Moscow has already made a failed attempt to stake its own claim to the Lomonosov Ridge, and thereby to the North Pole.Faced with a common enemy, Canada and Denmark have begun to negotiate to fund a joint programme, which will divide the hefty expenses. Kai Sorensen, the deputy director of GEUS, says Denmark and Canada share a common interest in arguing that the natural divide of the North Pole is formed by the Lomonosov Ridge, which creates a natural median line between Canada, Greenland and across the North Pole to Russian territory 

## Slide 16

## Slide 17

## Slide 18

**Notes:**
Environmental research already points to rapid climate change in the Arctic and sub-Arctic in years to come, endangering many animals native to the taiga. If some forecasts are to be believed, the polar bear could be extinct by the end of the century. 

## Slide 19

**Notes:**
November 26, 2004
Marine mammal hunting increased
In Chukotka, marine mammal hunting increased by 19 percent in comparison with last year. To date, marine mammal hunters of the region caught more than 5,700 seals and walruses, whereas in 2003 this figure was 4,000. However, according to the Regional Agricultural Administration’s plan, this year hunters are allowed to catch 9,188 marine mammals, which means that so far the plan has been executed by 63 percent.  In addition, within 10 months of this year, about 650 tons of meat has been prepared, which exceeds the planned volume by 20 percent. Marine mammal hunting is vital for the indigenous people of Chukotka: it is their traditional way of life. It provides them food, materials for building kayaks, hunting instruments, housing, and clothes. 

##           	Five Key Goals for 			U.S. Arctic Research

- SEARCH: Climate Change
- Bering Sea
- Arctic Health
- Resource Assessment
- Infrastructure Research

## USARC 

**USARC **
**ECUMENICAL BELIEF**

-  **The United States must maintain its global maritime capability—as a ****	****government AND as a Nation**
** ****If the U.S. does not exercise its visible maritime presence in the Arctic ****	****Ocean—we cede it to whomever wants it!**

- Mead Treadwell, meadwell@alaska.net