Center for a New American Security

 An ice island calved off of the Petermann Glacier, located in northwest Greenland, on August 5th.  This image, taken by NASA's EO-1 satellite, shows the 275 kilometer island's migration (upper-left quadrant of the image).  The calving was significant because it represented the single largest area loss for Greenland. Professor Jason Box, posting on the Byrd Polar Research Center's blog, points out that "while it is unreasonable to pin an individual cracking event of a glacier on Global Warming, even if enormous, the retreat of Petermann glacier is most certainly part of a pattern of global warming."  The Petermann Glacier has retreated 21 kilometers since 2000, and based on data and images taken since 1962, its retreat has reached a new minimum. The 2009-2010 winter and May 2010 were the warmest on record in Nuuk, Greenland.  Abnormally high air termperatures in Greenland have been linked with observations of reduced sea ice concentration and warming sea surface temperatures this year.

Photo: NASA-EO

Note from Alex: This is officially my last post on the Natural Security blog!  I have learned so much in my time at CNAS. I had a blast writing for the blog and I look forward to engaging with the Natural Security community for years to come.  Working with Christine and Will, as well as the rest of the CNAS staff, has been a truly wonderful experience. As always, thanks for reading!

The average Arctic sea ice extent for July 2010 was the second lowest on record (the record low was in July 2007).  The total ice extent was 8.4 million square kilometers, which was 1.71 million square kilometers less than the 1979-2000 average (shown in the above image by the magenta line).  According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the ice retreat for this July is part of a trend that shows a linear rate of decline of 6.4 percent.  Translation? It’s official: Arctic ice data is suggesting a retreating trend, not just a random pattern of expansion and decline.  Worse (at least for the polar bears), this means that the oldest, thickest ice is now being lost, not just the ice that accumulates between summer melting.

Photo: Courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO.

Last week, the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Review Panel released its final report on the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The five-month review of the QDR was an opportunity for a panel of national security and defense experts (including CNAS Commander-in-Chief Dr. John Nagl) to assess the shortcomings of the QDR and its processes, and to analyze U.S. national security priorities and challenges from outside the Department of Defense bureaucracy. According to the report:

The issues raised in the body of this Report are sufficiently serious that we believe an explicit warning is appropriate.  The aging of the inventories and equipment used by the services, the decline in the size of the Navy, escalating personnel entitlements, overhead and procurement costs, and the growing stress on the force means that a train wreck is coming in the areas of personnel, acquisition, and force structure. (Emphasis mine)

When I hear train wreck I think Li Lo or Mel Gibson. Despite that distraction, I kept reading.

The panel of experts identified four key national interests that have shaped U.S. national security policy since WWII:

Since 1945, the United States has been the principal architect and remains the principal leader of a durable and desirable international system. American security rests on four principles: the defense of the American homeland; assured access to the sea, air, space, and cyberspace; the preservation of a favorable balance of power across Eurasia that prevents authoritarian domination of that region; and provision for the global “common good” through such actions as humanitarian aid, development assistance, and disaster relief. (P. 25) 

Yesterday, I attended a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on “Climate Change Finance: Providing Assistance for Vulnerable Countries.”  The committee witnessed testimony from eight individuals on two panels: the first panel included The Honorable Lael Brainard, Under Secretary for International Affairs at the Treasury Department, Dr. Jonathan Pershing, Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change with the State Department, Rear Admiral David. W. Titley, Oceanographer and Navigator of the Navy and Dr. Maura O’Neill, Senior Counselor to the Administration and Chief Innovation Office at USAID; the second panel included The Honorable Nancy E. Soderberg, President of the Connect U.S. Fund, Elliot Diringer, Vice President of International Strategies with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, The Honorable Reed E. Hunt, CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital and Dr. Redmond Clark, Chairman and CEO of CBL Industrial Services.

The hearing itself tended to range far and wide, with representatives using their Q/A time to opine on whether climate change is real, or not; anthropogenic, or not. But there were several parts of the testimony that stood out as particularly interesting for someone who is interested in Natural Security issues.

First, Rear Admiral Titley had two particularly interesting points which resonated with several of our recent blog posts on the Arctic and a DOD energy event that we hosted last Tuesday.  Titley testified that the Navy is watching changes in the Arctic environment with interest, particularly shrinking levels of ice extent and volume.  He stated that “the changing Arctic has national security implications for the Navy,” and that the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review directs DOD to address gaps in the United States’ Arctic capabilities.  The Navy’s Maritime Strategy, for example, recognizes that the potential opening of new shipping routes could generate potential sources of competition for access to the High North, as well as to natural resources beneath the ice.  He mentioned the Bering Strait as one area among many that has the potential to become strategically significant over the next few decades.  He also mentioned that this summer, the Navy “will participate in Canada’s largest annual Arctic exercise, Operation NANOOK.”   While the United States has been increasingly active in the Arctic, with the Navy, Coast Guard and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force (which just recently released its final recommendations) being a visible presence, the United States hasn’t given the Arctic perhaps as much attention as it deserves as it grows in strategic importance, even allowing the only two Coastguard heavy icebreaking ships to fall into disrepair.

Since July 1st, the DoD blog Armed with Science has been posting about ICESCAPE, a scientific mission undertaken by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter HEALY, the United States’ most technologically advanced polar icebreaker (pictured above). First, let’s give them an earned shout-out for interagency collaboration. Next, a bit about the mission. According to the blog:

’Impacts of Climate on Ecosystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment’ is a multi-year NASA shipborne project to investigate the impacts of climate change on the ecology and biogeochemistry of the Arctic. During five weeks at sea, more than 40 scientists will sample the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the ocean and sea ice.

As our discussion with Charles Emmerson, author of The Future History of the Arctic highlighted, there’s a lot that we don’t know about the Arctic. As another of the USCG heavy icebreakers recently broke down, ICESCAPE’s ability to access and study the Arctic on the HEALY has become more important than ever. As Emmerson stated, “wanting to have more and (more capable) ships and other infrastructure up north is not just an academic exercise. It is also about how practically to deal with a range of possible future events – including an environmental disaster – and it is about demonstrating sovereignty and intent, backing up the diplomatic positions which the United States may take on Arctic issues.” We wish the HEALY and its crew luck on their journey as we officially conclude Arctic week here on the blog.

Photo: Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard

We’ve spent the week highlighting issues related to the Arctic by discussing a recent book on the subject. I want to end it by looking back to the recommendations geared toward improving Arctic governance that Will, Herb and I made in our April 2010 report on climate change and DOD. These things alone will not guarantee the United States can protect its interests in the Arctic, but nor can it get far without taking these three steps first.

First and foremost, we recommend ratifying UNCLOS. This is certainly nothing new, but it is important enough for anyone in support of it to add their voice. We wrote as follows:

Reductions in Arctic summer sea ice have created new opportunities for access to maritime trade routes and sea lines of communication, and potential access to vast supplies of zinc, nickel, palladium, precious stones and other various minerals, as well as oil and natural gas under the ocean with an estimated value of 1.2 trillion dollars. Many of these resources lie in the extended continental shelf up to 600 nautical miles of the Alaska coast. As access to the Arctic and industry technologies continues to improve, heightened energy needs could spur private corporations to increase exploration and exploitation of these reserves. UNCLOS establishes the process for mining firms to obtain access and exclusive rights to these resources and title to the minerals once recovered. A failure to ratify UNCLOS prevents the United States from submitting a claim for rights in the extended continental shelf and prevents firms from securing these rights. This will hinder growth in the emerging seabed mining industry and related industries in the United States – as well as the jobs supporting those industries – because corporations will wisely seek the protection and legal certainty afforded only to member nations of UNCLOS before investing in these opportunities.

A few months back, my colleague Shannon popped into my office with a review copy of a new book that someone had sent to CNAS. The word “Arctic” popped out in the title, causing me to sigh, “Not more about the Arctic.” Don’t get me wrong. It is a subject very important to our work. It’s just that most work on the Arctic is so boring; nothing new that we haven’t heard a million times already. We here tread somewhat lightly on the subject ourselves just to avoid parroting all that has long been repeated.

I eventually picked up this book as I was cleaning my messy desk, where it had rested for a few months, and decided to give it a shot. The Future History of the Arctic. Great title. Author: Charles Emmerson, an alum of the World Economic Forum and International Crisis Group. In other words, a credible decipherer and distiller of information.

As I read, I was quite happily surprised – more than happily, actually. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It reads like travel writing: the perfect balance of history, first-person anecdotes from interesting places, current events, and the context of where trends are pointing for the future. The text provides important information, but it is also highly entertaining. Though it would be a good read for anyone, its detail would prove especially useful for anyone in the national security field. I had marked about 10 percent of the pages in this book by the time I’d finished it, a high percentage for me.

“With more than 140 years of service in the Arctic and 11 statutory responsibilities there, the U.S. Coast Guard is at the center of efforts to adapt to [climate] change in the Arctic,” writes Christine Parthemore in her working paper, Promoting the Dialogue: Climate Change and the Maritime Services. “Its missions in the Arctic include protecting indigenous populations and marine life as well as law enforcement and interdiction. These missions give the Coast Guard unique responsibilities for managing the effects of environmental change on human populations in the Arctic.”

In Promoting the Dialogue, Parthemore explores the impact of climate change on the maritime services (specifically the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard) and synthesizes how these services are integrating climate change into their strategic and operational planning. “With access to the global commons and stability abroad potentially at stake, analyzing and addressing the effects of climate change will remain important to the ability of the Navy and the Coast Guard to successfully fulfill their missions,” Parthemore writes.

Photo: A U.S. Coast Guard cutter prepares to transport a science team to a remote ice floe to analyze Arctic sea ice. Courtesy of Aerographer’s Mate 1st Class Gene Swope and the U.S. Coast Guard.

With Friday's forecast calling for twenty inches of the white stuff, to be followed shortly thereafter by a chance of Four Horsemen, there was only one thing I could think of that would compliment DC's Snopocalyptic impending doom: attend a presentation on the U.S. Navy's strategic interests and game plan—not being a sports fan myself, that's pretty much the only Superbowl reference you'll get—for the Arctic. The Arctic Roadmap event was hosted by fellow D.C. think tank, the Stimson Center.

Beginning with a short talk by Director of Task Force Climate Change, Rear Admiral David Titley, the event then followed with a panel discussion with Caitlyn Antrim of the Rule of Law Committee for the Oceans (a joint host of the event), John Bellinger, former State Department  Legal Adviser, Major General Richard  Engel, USAF (ret.), Director, Climate Change and State Stability Program in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Amit Pandya from the Stimson Center.

Here are my main takeaways from Real Admiral Titley's talk:

• The Arctic contains up to 25% of undiscovered petroleum resources, in addition to immense     caches of minerals including copper, cobalt, gold and zinc.
• The Arctic Roadmap is available online for all to read.
• “Roadmap” is just an en-vogue term for “strategy.”
• In 30 years, the Arctic may experience its first fully ice-free summer.
• The officers that will have to navigate the turmoil of an ice-free Arctic are already enlisted (in other words, that’s how short the timeframe is we’re dealing with).
• Shippers need at least eight weeks of no ice to navigate the Northwest Passage, which won’t be seen for another 40 years. Even then shippers might not use it, as they are more concerned with reliability than speed. The Arctic is anything but reliable.

The Navy announced plans to launch the “Great Green Fleet” – a carrier strike group with ships and fighter jets fueled by biofuels and nuclear energy – yesterday, DOD Buzz reports.

Meanwhile, Green Inc. a New York Times blog reports that Tanzania has suspended production of all biofuels due to concerns about the country’s food security.

In response to the droughts California has faced, Reuters reports that California’s passage of SB 790 or the “Stormwater Resource Planning Act” will help treat and reuse rainwater rather than dumping it in the Pacific. Greenspace, a blog from the Los Angeles Times, reviews water security initiatives in California.

BBC reports that the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer of 2020.

Douglas W. Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, told a Senate energy panel Wednesday that while their assessment showed that a cap-and-trade system would slow the U.S. economy, it "[did] not include any benefits from averting climate change," The Washington Post reports.