Arctic Lecture 2009

Globalization and Climate Change:
Challenges in the New Maritime Arctic

Dr. Lawson W. Brigham

Thursday, February 26, 2009
7:00 p.m.
Kane Hall, Room 210
University of Washington

Abstract

Early in the 21st century the Arctic Ocean is undergoing extraordinary changes. The region has been understood for some time to be a large storehouse of untapped natural resources such as oil and gas, and mineral wealth (for example, nickel, copper, zinc, iron ore and palladium). Exploration and development of these natural resources, driven by recent, high commodity prices and worldwide demand, have today accelerated to where the Arctic is poised to be a new player in the global economy. The recent financial crisis notwithstanding, the long-term future of the Arctic and marine transport systems are tied to expanding natural resource development. Simultaneously, marine access in the Arctic Ocean is changing in unprecedented ways. Arctic sea ice is undergoing an historic transformation--thinning, extent reduction in all seasons, and substantial reductions in the area of multiyear ice in the central Arctic Ocean--which has significant implications for longer seasons of navigation and new access to previously difficult-to-reach coastal regions. In addition, the ongoing process for delimitation of the outer continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea presents unique challenges and unusual geopolitics to an already complex future for the maritime Arctic. Taken together, these changes present very real challenges to the existing legal and regulatory structures which cannot meet today's needs for enhanced marine safety and environmental protection. Such challenges will require historic levels of close cooperation among the Arctic states and broad engagement with many non-Arctic stakeholders and actors within the global maritime industry. Only through determined, international cooperation will Arctic peoples and the marine environment be sufficiently protected in an era of expanding marine use.

About Dr. Brigham

Dr. Lawson W. Brigham was Deputy Director and Alaska Office Director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission in Anchorage from 2001 to 2008. He is currently Chair of the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of the eight Arctic nations. He is also Vice Chair of the council's working group on Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment (PAME) and was a contributing author to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment.
A 1970 U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduate and a career U.S. Coast Guard officer from 1970 to 1995, Brigham commanded the patrol cutter Point Steele, the Great Lakes icebreaker Mobile Bay, the enforcement cutter Escanaba, and the polar icebreaker Polar Sea.

At the end of his career, Brigham served as chief of the Coast Guard's Strategic Planning Staff and Director of the Coast Guard Work-Life Study (1990-1993). From 1993 to 1995, he was the commanding officer of Polar Sea, sailing on four polar deployments including the Arctic Ocean Section '94 Expedition across the Arctic Ocean from Bering Strait to the North Pole and Fram Strait. Captain Brigham has participated in ten Antarctic expeditions and eight icebreaker voyages in the Arctic Ocean, and has sailed aboard icebreakers in Alaska, the Great Lakes, the Baltic Sea, the Russian Arctic, and around Antarctica. He has also served as a researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the U.S. Naval War College, and as a faculty member of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, in the Office of Naval Research Chair in Arctic Marine Science (1996-1997). His research interests for more than three decades have included studies of the Russian Arctic, ice navigation, sea ice, and satellite remote sensing of the polar regions. He received a Ph.D. in polar oceanography from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom and an M.S. in management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Brigham is also a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval War College.