The Arctic This Week Take Five: Week of July 1, 2019
One Fox’s Incredible Journey
This week, all major news outlets covered a story about an Arctic fox’s epic journey from Norway to Canada in 76 days, citing a research article published in the journal Polar Research on June 24. The fox had been fitted with a tracking device in July 2017, and on March 26 2018 it left Spitsbergen in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. Two and a half months later, on July 1, it reached Ellesmere Island in Nunavut. It had then traveled a distance of over 3,506 km (2,178 miles), moving at an average rate of 46.3 km/day (CNN, Polar Research, The Guardian, The New York Times).
Take 1: The fox’s trek has been perceived as extraordinary, and has left researchers speechless. The 3,506 km journey is among the longest dispersal events ever recorded for the species. The fox also broke another record when it travelled 155 km in one day, making it the longest distance covered by the species in one day. This is not only extraordinary, but serves as another example of how important sea ice is to wildlife in the Arctic. The fact that sea ice plays a vital role in foxes’ ability to migrate between areas and find resources makes it difficult now as the ice is increasingly threatened by climate change. We have to cut emissions fast if we want to prevent the sea ice from disappearing all summer.
Fires Continue in the Arctic
This month across the Arctic more than 100 wildfires are releasing harmful gases into the atmosphere. The fires have been burning for weeks in various locations to include Siberia and Alaska. Scientists are calling the scale and length of the fires “unprecedented,” with some larger than 100,000 hectares. A professor of geography at the London School of Economics, Thomas Smith, stated that the amount of CO2 released from the June fires is greater than the amount released from the 2010-2018 Arctic Circle fires combined. An estimated 50 megatons of carbon dioxide had been released in June. This month it is estimated that close to 5 megatons of CO2 has already been released (Vice).
Take 2: Fires are a normal part of some ecosystems, yet the scale and the continual nature of these fires is what remains worrying. With drier and drier summers, the Arctic region’s fires have intensified, releasing carbon that has been stored away for centuries. This cycle feeds itself, getting worse and worse every year as more carbon is released and the temperatures continue to increase. Expect next year’s fires to be as “unprecedented,” or set the new standard.
Discovery of Subglacial Lakes
Last week, on June 26, the journal Nature Communications published results of a new survey of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Scientists from the University of Sheffield, Lancaster University, and Stanford University had identified a total of 56 previously unknown subglacial lakes beneath the body of ice, ranging in size from about 0.2 km (650 feet) to more than 5.9 km (3.5 miles) in length. The lakes were found by analyzing more than 500,000 km of airborne radio echo sounding data, helping the researchers to get a better understanding of how freshwater effects the ice in the Arctic (BBC News, Express, Nature, NBC News).
Take 3: The new study is of huge significance as it is the first comprehensive look at bodies of water locked under the Greenland Ice Sheet. In the past only four subglacial lakes had been identified due to the lack of research, compared to the 470 lakes beneath Antarctic ice. Now, with the discovery of 56 new lakes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet, it is the first time that researchers finally can build a picture of where lakes form under the ice. This information is important for improving knowledge on the wider subglacial hydrological system, ice-flow dynamics, and the ice sheet’s basal thermal state. In particular, it may be important for predicting future sea-level rise as surface ice continues to melt due to climate change, and lakes will fill up faster. The lakes can have a lubricating effect on the ice above, moving it down to lower elevations where it becomes even more susceptible to surface melting. However, more research is needed to determine the exact effects the lakes will have on sea level. It is possible that subglacial lakes are not a huge concern for climate change as the bodies of water can store meltwater that otherwise would enter the oceans.
Stuck in Ice
This week the German icebreaker RV Polarstern continued to prepare for a year long mission in the Arctic ice. The MOSAiC mission, which stands for Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate is a year long, $158 million mission, which aims to combine measurements on the ice with data collected from satellites. This combination scientists hope will help in generating more accurate climate models. The ship will be home base for scientists from 17 nations. The plan is for the ship to sail into the Arctic Ocean and be anchored to a large piece of ice. When the water freezes the ship will remain trapped. Dozens of scientists will rotate every two months arriving on other icebreakers that will resupply the RV Polarstern.
Take 4: This mission is critical in getting vital information on the Arctic climate. The scientists that are taking part in the research span several fields of science, including physics, chemistry and biology. Not only are their expertise diverse but so are their backgrounds, bringing together a truly international team that is focused on answering the tough questions and not in dealing with political bias or interests. Such cooperation is vital and shows what is possible when countries decide to work together under a common cause.
Nuclear Power that Floats
After almost two decades of construction it was finally announced on June 30 that the 144-meter floating nuclear power plant, Akademik Lomonosov, that has two active nuclear reactors aboard, now will be towed via the Northern Sea Route to Pevek, a Russian Arctic port town 4,000 miles away from Moscow. There it will float next to the town, supplying 35 MW of electricity to settlements and companies that extract hydrocarbons and precious stones in the Chukotka region. Once in place for operation this August, it will be the northernmost operating nuclear plant in the world, and the first floating nuclear power plant in the world (RT, World Nuclear News).
Take 5: The nuclear plant is of huge importance to Russia when it comes to aiding it in its ambitious Arctic expansion plans. It will be key to developing the region economically. However, it has drawn criticism from environmentalists as they see it as a risk to have nuclear reactors stationed in the Arctic Sea. Because of that, Greenpeace has referred to the Lomonosov platform as “Chernobyl on Ice” or “floating Chernobyl.” The state atomic energy corporation, Rosatom, that is in charge of the project, opposes this view, arguing that what happened in Chernobyl can’t happen again as the Arctic waters will be cooling it down constantly. Just in case, a backup system will be in place, and keep the reactor cooling for 24 hours without electricity supply. Yet, for the skeptics of the plant, a supply that is only good for 24 hours is hardly reassuring. The arguments of mobility and ability to work in remote regions don’t hold ground either as the remoteness will complicate the rescue operations that are necessary after an accident, as well as the more routine clearing of spent nuclear fuel from its reactors.