February 24, 2011 – 10:46 am
If you’re looking for a source on Arctic climate changes, you have a lot of options. You can head to a bookstore and look up relevant information in reference materials that focus on weather in the area. You can also find a lot of information and good sources on the internet. There are even various state and government reports that you can request or locate online or through data provided by various agencies that track such information. Climate changes have become a big deal in the last decade and gained a lot of attention with Al Gore’s political campaign. Global warming became a concern for scientists and residents world-wide.
A good source on Arctic climate change can tell you about the average as well as extreme temperatures and amounts of precipitation the area receives. Reports also monitor the melting rate and creation of glaciers and icebergs. Satellite photos help people compare the size of various masses of ice over time and show their progression across land or water. Many believe that the rate of melting is increasing and causing immediate or possibly negative long-term affects on the world’s ecosystem. It can help when reviewing data to also understand how data was collected and if it has been independently verified by another trusted source.
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February 23, 2011 – 5:40 pm
Have you always wanted to take an exciting artic adventure? Now is the perfect time to start planning your next getaway. You should consider traveling to the beautiful and exciting Norway. The area of Oslo is a popular vacation spot with many guests because of the variety of attractions and activities. Once you make a visit, you will wonder why you didn’t travel here sooner. When starting to plan your trip, use HelloWeekends.com so that you can find a perfectly affordable hotel.
Norway is known for its gorgeous views. No mater what part you choose to visit, you will be able to take memorable photographs. While the weather can be especially chilly in Oslo, Norway, this is what often attracts so many visitors. This is because a variety of outdoor adventures can be had at this destination. Have you always wanted to ski, snowboard, or ice-skate? You will be able to try all of these exciting sports while in Oslo.
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February 14, 2011 – 3:49 pm
After creating a share-swap deal, Rosneft and BP were set to drill in the Arctic waters of Kara Sea, but there were some complications in the swap part of the deal that got in the way. Alfa Access Renova are the existing BP partners in Russia that have created TNK-BP as a partnership and thereby placed a court order that halted the swapping of shares with Rosneft due to a breach of an earlier agreement, the company claims. Apparently, BP made a suggestion that TNK-BP would be able to join the deal with Rosneft in Russia, and they weren’t too fond of being excluded after that statement.
The agreement was put into place to ensure that TNK-BP could get involved on the action going on in Russia and there have been many talks about joining the deal, but the company still feels that it is not an acceptable solution. They don’t have the experience, personnel, or technology according to the CFO of Rosneft, which is why it doesn’t seem like it will be successful. The oligarchs (as TNK-BP is known) and BP will now begin arbitrations in the United Nations Court in Sweden to determine the next steps.
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February 6, 2011 – 5:12 pm
Arctic plants are very scarce, and for good reason. This region is so cold that few plants can actually survive in the weather. The plant life that calls the arctic home has to be very steady and able to withstand all of the different elements. There are some flowers, moss, and shrubs to be found, along with some grasses. However, because of the weather and the fact that the soil is only a few centimeters deep across the continent, there is simply not a mass of plants that call this continent home.
Arctic plants that you will find in this region include things like grasses, lichen, cloud berry flowers, wildflowers, herbs, dwarf and arctic willows, and more. There are only a few short months of sunshine in the arctic, and the weather is still cold and windy all the while. Still, many plants have managed to adapt and call this region home, no matter what the weather is like. Adapting is a slow process that requires the plants to adjust to their new surroundings and get used to the temperatures and lack of sunlight in the region.
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February 6, 2011 – 2:48 pm
Norway has urged Canada to settle a dispute with Russia over sovereignty of territory in the Arctic, in order to lower tensions. This came after a boundary agreement between Russia and Norway, marking the end of a dispute that lasted over forty years. Norway’s dispute with Russia had been over the Barents Sea, an area rich in natural resources. Canada’s current dispute with Russia is similar in nature, and settling it could serve as a way to lower tension between the two countries.
Jonas Gahr Store, the Foreign Minister for Norway, said that the Barents Sea pact between Norway and Russia serves as an example of how each country with a foothold in the Arctic is scrambling to try an claim a region that could contain as much as one-quarter of the world’s total untapped oil and gas, and which will become more accessible as the polar ice caps melt. Gahr also said
“It is also sending a message to the Arctic states that this is how we solve outstanding issues. It’s done through negotiation; it’s done by using the most modern principles of international law.”
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January 19, 2011 – 11:57 pm
Canada has made several recent moves that show the fact that Canada seeks to establish itself as an Arctic power. The country’s government recently bolstered its presence in the Arctic which, with increasingly warm weather, has become increasingly accessible. The promise of rich resources such as oil and natural gas has pushed Canada to try to take more control over its northern waterways. The Canadian government has, in recent months, made its Arctic territory a location for official visits, as well as military exercises taking place both above and below water. This came at roughly the same time as an incident in which Russian bombers were chased away by Canadian fighter jets because they had flown a little too close to the border of Canadian aerospace.
Many of the nations that have a foothold in the Arctic have been researching various areas of the ocean floor and continental shelves, which have shown that they may contain a huge amount of natural resources. In fact, the Arctic may contain as much as one third of the total undiscovered oil in the entire world. The extension of continental shelves has caused some confrontation between countries, with a dispute regarding which country an area of the Arctic Sea rich in natural resources belongs to. Canada and Russia have both laid claim to the land, although Norway has urged both countries to settle the dispute and lower tension.
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January 18, 2011 – 12:28 pm
Alaska recently filed a petition to try and overturn the Obama administration’s hold on any drilling in federal waters in the Arctic. Officials from the Department of the Interior, on the other hand, have insisted that no such moratorium exists.
Alaska’s legal petition asserts that the Department of the Interior’s “arbitrarily and capriciously imposed” hold on drilling in federal waters after the Deepwater Horizon disaster was brought about “without considering and weighing the potential effects on Alaska, including economic harm to the State of Alaska and Alaska residents.”
The Governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell has backed the petition, based on the economic damage he says the hold could cause. Parnell said in a statement regarding the petition,
“Development of Alaska’s (Outer Continental Shelf) resources is of critical importance to Alaska’s future and the economic and security interests of the United States.”
He added,
“We are taking this action to ensure that the federal government abides by applicable federal law, including its legal responsibility to make the OCS available for expeditious and orderly development.”
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January 7, 2011 – 12:10 am
Anyone who was a grade school student in a United States public school recently inevitably did a report or paper focused on Arctic animals or the Arctic region in general. This area is a fascinating ecosystem at the northern end of the earth and is well known for its extremely cold temperatures, Northern Lights, and eternal summer as some call it. The eternal summer reference comes from the fact that during the summer months, the sun continues to shine in the Arctic, even through out what is normally considered nighttime hours. This remote location is the natural habitat for polar bears, Arctic foxes and wolves, caribou, and musk ox to name a few.
Other Arctic animals that thrive in cold, northern temperatures include the snowy owl, collared lemming, Arctic hare, walrus, and narwhals (whales). Narwhals, also called corpse whales because they often float upside down on their backs for prolonged periods, travel slowly in Arctic waters in pods. As they travel, they communicate with amazing clicks, squeals and whistles so they can stay together. Narwhals eat squid and have an interesting and distinctive tusk that sticks out like a tooth on the whale’s head that can grow to about nine feet long.
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January 7, 2011 – 12:01 am
Petroleum exploration in the Arctic has increased in the last few years mostly due to the increase in oil prices and continued demand across the world for this resource. Several major companies have taken on new or extended projects in spite of a higher Petroleum Profits Tax as levied by the State of Alaska. Companies like Shell, Alaska Petroleum, Anadarko Petroleum and continue to play major roles in drilling, testing, and hopefully tapping more oil. Exploration is mostly concentrated near the ANWR border east of Prudhoe Bay, in the southern area of the Brooks Range foothills, and west of the NPRA (National Petroleum Reserve).
Petroleum exploration in the Arctic has long been a conflicting issue for the world from a political standpoint as well as an ecological one. Many people worry that continued exploration is going to be at the cost of losing natural areas and wildlife habitats that are crucial to the chain of life. Conversely, oil is still a necessary and highly sought after resource. Oil exploration is at an all time high and more people are employed as a result. Searching for oil costs a great deal of money and as many have recently observed in the BP leak in the Gulf, clean up can also be very expensive and take its toll on the surrounding environment and wildlife, not to mention human impact.
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October 31, 2010 – 12:01 pm
A recent press release from India’s leading firm for oil and natural gas, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) shows India to bid for share in Russia’s Arctic oil reserves. ONGC is the only foreign company that will be placing bids for Russian oil deposits, and will be bidding through its Russian subsidiary company, Nord Imperial. The area that ONGC will be bidding on, which includes parts of the Trebs and Titov regions, holds oil reserves estimated to total at about two hundred million tons.
The Minister of Natural Resources for Russia said that although the oil reserves in these regions is classified as a “strategic resource” (as opposed to a luxury or economic resource), the Russian government will be allowing ONGC to bid, but the Russian government will most likely be going with a national company. Some sources suggest that ONGC could be planning to partner up with Rosneft. Because of the rapid rate at which domestic demand for oil is rising in India, the Indian government has been looking into a number of foreign oil reserves for consideration. Coal and oil reserves around the world have been looked at by the Indian government with the intention of expanding the amount of resources it can acquire.
The Indian government has also begun plans for creating a sovereign wealth fund, in order to help cover the financial needs of companies owned by the state, such as ONGC, as well as Indian Oil Corporation and Oil India Limited. Each of these companies bid for various types of energy assets (such as oil, gas, and coal) around the world. In 2009, China spent roughly thirty-two billion dollars on energy and resource acquisition around the world. In contrast, India spent only roughly two billion dollars.
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