Where is… transport hub of the world

26 Thursday Jul 2007

Posted by mpb in environmental change, maps

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Earth’s shipping lanes and network of roads map
click map to view the larger image at Science magazine

Fig. 2. Earth’s shipping lanes and network of roads. Each shipping lane data point represents the location where an expendable probe was dropped for sampling of ocean temperature from 14 October 2004 to 15 October 2005. Shipping lanes map created from data downloaded at www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/BBXX from the SEAS BBXX database of the Global Ocean Observing System Center from the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The road network is a 1:1 million scale representation of the paved and unpaved roads of the world. Map created from Environmental Systems Research Institute’s (ESRI) Digital Chart of the World (DCW) global vectors, created in 1992.

The Atlantic shipping lanes are more concentrated (dense) but the north Pacific lanes are fascinating for how much comes to Alaskan waters. There’s an awful lot that comes to Anchorage and Unalaska / Kodiak. It’s also amazing that our Unorganized Roads (the disconnected roads) show up. The eastern 1/3 of the state of Alaska is “roaded” even though there are just two roads in or out. The Beaufort and Chukchi seas are marked also. Our staples and fuel are mapped (north of the Aleutian chain). I wonder if our ice road is included?

It would be neat if someone could overlay the historical lanes, for example, the Natchez Trace, Silk Road, salt caravans, Ghanaian gold trade, the founding canoes of Aotearoa, etc. Many of the historic routes will be the same as today’s. However, if the ocean currents shift with climate change, how might the routes change? Already, Canada and Russia are planning for a genuine “Northwest” Passage (Arctic Ocean transportation hubs). Will our western Alaska routes change, such that European-Asian traffic will come past us? How will a change in transportation affect patterns of infectious disease?

Check out the NOAA map! It’s “real time” (Java applet) of shipping in our area (where is that kitty litter, Pilot Bread, winter fuel? and duckies!)

[check out the real time ice map in boreal summer to see where the shipping lanes and the Northwest Passage through the Arctic might be shortly / is — Where is… Bethel ice pack]

See 2010-02,Shipping map tracks marine aliens * 13 January 2010 by Linda Geddes

Review
Domesticated Nature: Shaping Landscapes and Ecosystems for Human Welfare
Peter Kareiva, Sean Watts, Robert McDonald, Tim Boucher
Science 29 June 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5833, pp. 1866 – 1869, DOI: 10.1126/science.1140170

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5833/1866

Like all species, humans have exercised their impulse to perpetuate and propagate themselves. In doing so, we have domesticated landscapes and ecosystems in ways that enhance our food supplies, reduce exposure to predators and natural dangers, and promote commerce. On average, the net benefits to humankind of domesticated nature have been positive. We have, of course, made mistakes, causing unforeseen changes in ecosystem attributes, while leaving few, if any, truly wild places on Earth. Going into the future, scientists can help humanity to domesticate nature more wisely by quantifying the tradeoffs among ecosystem services, such as how increasing the provision of one service may decrease ecosystem resilience and the provision of other services.

Site Search Tags: NOAA, Sciencemag, AAAS, shipping, highways, flotsam, Canada, Russia, Asia, transportation, ESRI, ecosystems, landscapes, biocultural+adaptation, railbelt, unorganized+borough duckies, melt+rush, land+claim

9 thoughts on “Where is… transport hub of the world”

mpb said:

2007 July 26 at 2:13 pm

via
Circumpolar Musings Circumpolar Studies Online… http://dl1.yukoncollege.yk.ca/agraham/

Russia stakes out claim to North Pole http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2007/07/260707.asp

Russian Arctic stunt prompts demand for ‘proper icebreakers’

Byers urged Canada to take the lead in convening a summit of leaders from all polar nations, including the Inuit, to draw attention away from headline-grabbing acts like the Russian submarine mission and toward “diplomacy, co-operation, and the legal processes” that will ultimately determine each country’s rights over Arctic resources – and responsibilities for environmental stewardship in a region increasingly seen as ground zero of a global climate change crisis.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=f7f65e42-e6fe-4ee6-92d3-c962245e8b76&k=34485

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mpb said:

2007 August 5 at 3:48 pm

The scramble for Arctic wealth AFP August 2, 2007 PARIS — Global warming and, ironically, its main cause – fossil fuels – explain the intensifying squabble to claim rights over the Arctic seabed. Around a quarter of the world’s oil reserves are locked up below the Arctic Ocean, according to the US Geological Survey. The Arctic floor is also home to massive gas fields which are virtually unexploited, including those in the Barents Sea and, in particular, the Russian Shtokman field, which has reserves estimated at a staggering 3,200 billion cubic meters (113,006 billion cubic feet). […]

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Pam said:

2007 August 17 at 11:31 am

Far North Science has a post about the overall change in the Arctic sea ice. While the annual fluctuations are important to note, the overall trend is the more significant for planning.
Arctic ice sets modern record

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mpb said:

2008 May 19 at 3:09 pm

And ships could make the ice vanish even faster, Brock said.

“So the less ice there is, the more ships could go through, and ship plumes are often very black,” Brock said. “That may be more important when ice is forming in the fall and melting in the spring, but we also don’t know what that would do to the chemistry of the water up there. You’re basically introducing an industrial activity that wasn’t there before.”

The area is unregulated and not owned by any country, and ships will likely use the passage because it is cheaper than sailing around continents, Dubey said.

“In the absence of law and regulation, the free market will do what it wants,” he said. “We would need some sort of policy or international treaties to stop that. But at the very least what we need is more time to learn what’s happening and to adapt to that.”

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/19-Arctic

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mpb said:

2008 May 19 at 3:12 pm

Where is… the lifeboat in the great Arctic Melt-rush?

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mpb said:

2008 July 24 at 7:59 am

I really like Ben Muse’s Arctic Economics blog and recommend you add him to your feed reader.

http://benmuse.typepad.com/arctic_economics/2008/07/northwest-passage-transits.html

The data is from Appendix F to the proceedings of the Arctic Marine Transport Workshop. The figure only includes complete transits through September 2004. There were 99 of these. If a transit took several years, it was assigned to the year it was completed. Submarine transits have not been counted because only two have been reported.

The first transit was Roald Amundsen in the Gjøa in 1903-06. We’ve got transits by ice breakers, research vessels, yachts, cruise ships, drilling ships. The first cruise ship, the Lindblad Explorer, transited in 1984. Between this transit and the end of the data series, 24 vessels are listed as carrying passengers (so I assume these are cruises).

Why did traffic pick up from the late 1970s?

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