Paul Goble
Staunton, Nov. 26 – Most studies of the impact of global warming in the Arctic have focused on how rising temperatures have affected the region just north of the Russian Federation through which the Northern Sea Route passes. But a new study by five Chinese scholars says portions of the Arctic north of there are warming more than had been thought.
The team from the Ocean University of China and the Laoshan Laboratory says that its research shows that climate change has had a far greater effect there than had been thought because the size of increases in the temperature of water there is too large to explain by anything else.
For the report, see science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx9452; for a discussion of its findings and its impact on the biosphere there and the disappearance of some kinds of fish in adjoining regions, see thebarentsobserver.com/news/the-deepest-parts-of-the-arctic-ocean-are-warming-now-too/441361.
What neither the Chinese authors of this report or the otherwise comprehensive Barents Observer article talk about, however, may be even more important in the future. If the waters of the Arctic far from the Russian coastline warms to the point that the ice melts and ships can pass through them, then the meaning of the NSR changes.
Moscow’s promotion of the Northern Sea Route is based on the assumption, widely shared elsewhere, that the only passage way for shipping in the near future is along the Russian coast line. But if ships can go further north, they are likely to do so to avoid having to pay transit fees to Moscow.
And that will reduce Moscow’s influence in the region and open the way to the expansion of a Chinese role in the Arctic far larger than it is today if not immediately than in the next decade or so. That Chinese scholars are the ones considering such warming most closely strongly suggests that this possibility is part of Beijing’s calculations.
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