Last summer the Arctic became a fashionable place to visit. As the melting of sea ice accelerated, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland and the United States sent exploration teams northward. The Russians used a submersible to plant a titanium flag two miles down at the North Pole.

Why is this happening now? It’s because global warming is shrinking the polar ice caps, making formerly inaccessible deposits of oil, gas and minerals much easier to get to — and opening the once-inaccessible Northwest Passage that early European explorers sought as a shorter route from Europe to Asia.

 This reminds me of the scramble for a slice of the anticipated riches in the fishing and oil reserves on the continental shelves back in the 1950s. President Truman, at the request of the coastal states and industrial interests, by executive order, claimed jurisdiction out to 600 feet or to a depth of economic exploitability. Then some countries claimed exclusive fishing rights out to 200 miles. And there were serious squabbles between England and Iceland, between the United States and Canada, and between several Latin American countries.

 For some years I was involved in the drafting of the United Nations Law of the Sea, which was supposed to regulate all human uses of the high seas, from fishing to mining. Under the convention, governments can claim an economic zone out to 200 miles, or further, if they can prove that an area is an extension of their own continental shelf.

 The Russians have made a claim that the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater formation rising more than 10,000 feet above the Arctic seabed that extends out to the North Pole, is their economic zone. Denmark claims that the ridge is connected to Greenland. And Canada maintains that the ridge is an extension of Ellesmere island.

 Why the hurry? Because any country that wants to make a claim under the Law of the Sea must do so within a decade of ratifying the treaty. The Russian deadline is 2009. Canada has till 2013 and Norway till 2014. The United States has never ratified the treaty.

 Mining interests convinced President Reagan that the International Authority created by the United Nations would penalize American commercial interests who wanted to mine manganese nodules from the deep ocean and didn’t want to pay a royalty to the U.N. Now that has changed.

 Senator Richard Lugar says the Bush administration wants to sign the treaty and start making America’s claim to the Arctic resources.

 So far there has not been a systematic survey of the region. Claims that the Arctic may contain 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas may be wishful thinking. However, 50 scientists from 10 nations, including the United States, are cooperating to better understand what is happening.

 They were surprised to learn that large tracts of Arctic sea ice are now only three feet thick — half the thickness of six years ago. Ice cover is also drastically shrinking. Climatologists are alarmed because the melting of the Arctic ice will accelerate global warming. The ice sheet reflects energy into space, and as the reflective surface disappears, more heat is absorbed in the ocean. We can anticipate that there will be very large and more rapid changes in the areas surrounding the Arctic Ocean and the entire Northern Hemisphere.

 At this time, when national claims and counter-claims make world headlines, the general severity of the Arctic weather will require that all the potential claimants must cooperate. Fortunately, there is a United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf that will decide the merits of the competing claims.

LLOYD V. STOVER
Asheville

EDITOR’s NOTE: Dr. Lloyd V. Stover is an attorney and oceanographer who has been an advisor to the government during the evolution of the Law of the Sea.