Three field experiments in widely separated parts of the Arctic were carried out during 1979 to complete a study of the interaction between ocean waves and sea ice in the marginal ice zone. The aim of the project is to determine the distribution of floe sizes that is generated by a given incident wave field, and this requires measurements of wave decay, of the bending and body responses of floes, and of the strain necessary to cause fracture. The first series of experiments was carried out in 1978 (Wadhams, 1979) off Labrador and east Greenland. The 1979 series consisted of participation in a University of Washington cruise aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Surveyor to the Bering Sea; participation in the ground truth component of the Sursat remote sensing experiment off west Greenland; and finally a main summer experiment at Mesters Vig, east Greenland, in the same location as the 1978 main experiment. The Office of Naval Research (ONR), Washington DC, funded the study, and the two Greenland experiments were carried out in cooperation with the Electromagnetics Institute, Technical University of Denmark (TUD), Lyngby, with Danish government finance.

The climatic conditions in the Arctic, and observations of the wind-induced drift of ice made in connexion with Fridtjof Nansen's Fram expedition, led to the discovery 100 years ago by Vilhelm Bjerknes' pupil, V.W. Ekman, of the importance of the Earth's rotation in limiting the depth of the wind-induced shear current in the ocean. This essay commemorates the centenary of Ekman's seminal paper, which was published in 1905. The paper presents a concise summary of Ekman's contributions to physical oceanography and a brief review of their continuing impact. The two key concepts are the Ekman spiral (the helical rotation of the velocity vector, in atmospheric and oceanic boundary layers) and the resultant Ekman pumping (vertical motions in the water column associated with the divergence of the flow in the surface layer in the presence of a rotational wind-stress field). Later work has revealed how the magnitude and direction of the surface current relative to the wind vector is influenced by the presence of surface waves and the behaviour of the turbulent flow in the near-surface layer of the ocean. However, the structure of Ekman's original viscous coupling model remains a permanent legacy to physical oceanographers.

The Arctic and the Antarctic appear to be polar opposites with regard to many matters, including the systems of governance that have evolved in the two regions. Antarctica is demilitarised, closed to economic development, open to a wide range of scientific activities, and subject to strict environmental regulations under the terms of the legally binding Antarctic Treaty of 1959 along with several supplementary measures that together form the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). The Arctic, by contrast, is a theatre of military operations, a site of largescale industrial activities, a homeland for sizable groups of indigenous peoples, and a focus of growing concern regarding the environmental impacts of human activities. The Arctic Council, the principal international body concerned with governance at the regional level, operates under the terms of a ministerial declaration that is not legally binding; it lacks the authority to make formal decisions about matters of current interest. Digging a little deeper, however, one turns up some illuminating similarities between the governance systems operating in the antipodes. In this article, I pursue this line of thinking, setting forth a range of observations relating to (i) the history of governance in the antipodes, (ii) institutional innovations occurring in these regions, (iii) issues of membership, (iv) jurisdictional concerns, (v) the role of science, (vi) relations with the UN system, (vii) institutional interplay, and (viii) the adaptiveness of governance systems in the face of changing circumstances. The governance systems for the polar regions are not likely to converge anytime soon. Nevertheless, this analysis should be of interest not only to those concerned with the fate of Antarctica and the Arctic but also to those seeking to find effective means of addressing needs for governance in other settings calling for governance without government.

Under the regime established by the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, decision-making remains exclusively with the limited number of states that are entitled to appoint representatives to participate in Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings. Whereas the 12 original signatory states have a permanent right to attend these meetings, acceding states may gain consultative status only during the time they carry out substantial scientific research in the Antarctic. This paper addresses three issues: the first relates to the problems arising out of the ‘admission procedure’ adopted by the original signatory states when faced with the first application of an acceding state to become an Antarctic Treaty Consultative Party, a procedure that has been applied ever since to similar cases. The second looks at the forms of scientific research activities an acceding party ought to conduct in Antarctica in order to meet the requirements laid down in the Antarctic Treaty. The third deals more generally with the issue of limited participation in the Antarctic Treaty decision-making process, which has come under severe criticism from non-Consultative Parties and states that have not acceded to the Treaty.

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork data, this article argues there is tension between how Longyearbyen’s residents wish to perform as a community and hindrances the town inherited from its past and accepts as demarcation lines of Norway’s Svalbard politics. The population of Longyearbyen has undergone considerable change since the 1990s, turning from a predominantly Norwegian mining community into a highly diversified group of people from all over the world. This article places Longyearbyen into the wider context of settlements with similar traces (in Scandinavia, the Arctic, multilingual and immigrant communities worldwide, or in the context of extractivism) and discusses the existing barriers of communitification. Encounters with four participants illuminate the tensions and contradictions when it comes to cultivating social cohesion and shaping Longyearbyen’s “desired futures.” Unless the process of increasing the community’s agency is actively encouraged by people living there and those governing it from the outside, the future of the settlement risks being alienating for its inhabitants, weakening further the communitification potential.

US-China relations represent the most central bilateral relationship in the world, but few studies investigate the two countries’ approaches to the Arctic. This article explores the geopolitical shifts in the Arctic, and compares and contrasts American and Chinese policy in the region. The article examines to what extent the two have common or conflicting interests, and discusses the potential for US-China friction and rivalry. Some alarmist writers suggest that the future Arctic is set for confrontation. This article, however, argues that the current stakes in the circumpolar Arctic region are not sufficiently high to warrant confrontation between the two states. Cooperation predominantly guides their policies and activities. While they play different roles and increasingly seek to demonstrate their influence, there are common interests, such as in the freedom of the seas, in resource extraction and in developing infrastructure in the region.

The third-quarter phenomenon is the dominant theoretical model to explain the psychological impacts of deployment in Antarctica on personnel. It posits that detrimental symptoms to functioning, such as negative mood, increase gradually throughout deployment and peak at the third-quarter point, regardless of overall deployment length. However, there is equivocal support for the model. The current meta-analysis included data from 21 studies (involving 1,826 participants) measuring negative mood during deployment to elucidate this discrepancy. Across studies analyses were conducted on three data types: stratified by month using repeated-measured all time points meta-analytic techniques and pre/post-deployment data for summer/winter deployment seasons. Our results did not support the proposed parameters of the third-quarter phenomenon, as negative mood did not peak at the third-quarter point (August/September) of deployment. Overall effect sizes indicated that negative mood was greater at baseline than the end of deployment for summer and winter deployment seasons. These findings have theoretical and practical implications and should be used to guide future research, assisting in the development and modification of pre-existing prevention and intervention programmes to improve well-being and functioning of personnel during Antarctic deployment.

The question of Antarctica was discussed at the United Nations General Assembly in 1985 for the third successive year. While the content of the debates differed little from that of previous years, the discussions resulted in the adoption, by large majorities, of three resolutions in favour of an expanded and up-dated UN Study on Antarctica, the provision of information for the UN on the Antarctic minerals regime negotiations, and the exclusion of South Africa from the Antarctic Treaty System. The Antarctic Treaty powers, favouring no real UN role in Antarctica, stressed the need to maintain the present arrangements and did not participate in the UN votes on the three resolutions. The apparent breakdown of the consensus approach that was characteristic of 1983 and 1984 raises a question for the future; will 1986 witness bridge-building or continuing divisions on the most appropriate way to manage Antarctica in the future?

Sightings of killer whales (Orcinus orca) are increasing in the eastern Canadian Arctic, but trends in the western Arctic have not been thoroughly examined. We summarise killer whale observations from the Canadian Beaufort Sea, primarily from traditional ecological knowledge interviews and group workshops conducted in 1993 and 2006–2007. After correcting for duplicative reports, we documented 31 observations occurring from the 1940s to 2000s (18 of the 31 observations could be attributed to a particular decade whereas others could not). Killer whales are rare in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, with only 1–5 reported sightings per decade since the 1940s (median = 3). In 1993 only 15% of Inuvialuit hunters in three communities had observed them, including some sightings in Alaska. Recent mapping workshops (2006–2007) collected only eight sightings from 128 participants in all six regional communities. Local observations indicate no apparent increase in killer whale presence in the western Canadian Arctic. Sightings were widely distributed across the region, although concentrated in the Mackenzie Delta area with few to the east. Killer whales are annually observed as far north as Barrow, Alaska, but do not appear to make regular eastward movements and are rare in Canadian waters.

The drift of Hobson's Choice Ice Island from the Arctic Ocean into the channels of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, Northwest Territories, Canadian Arctic, between February 1988 and August 1992, was monitored by a Système Argos satellite-positioning buoy. During the period August 1991 to May 1992, the ice island was imaged by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) aboard the ERS-1 satellite. The buoy data show that Hobson's Choice entered Peary Channel (between Axel Heiberg Island and Ellef Ringnes Island) in October 1988. Subsequently, between mid-August 1991 and November 1991, it drifted rapidly south to Queens Channel (60 km north of Cornwallis Island). The SAR data corroborate the buoy data and also reveal that at least six other ice islands entered the Queen Elizabeth Islands' channels with Hobson's Choice. The SAR imagery also recorded the fragmentation of Hobson's Choice between mid-October and mid-November 1991. The buoy and SAR data are conclusive evidence that ice islands do leave the Arctic Ocean via the northwestern channels of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. The observed drift occurred when there was extensive break-up of fast ice in the inter-island channels caused by above average summer temperatures, in combination with favourable atmospheric circulation and surface winds that drove the ice islands into and through the channels.

In Article 3 of the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties committed themselves to ‘the protection of the Antarctic environment…and the intrinsic value of Antarctica, including its wilderness and aesthetic values.’ The phraseology of the Protocol requires clarification. ‘Wilderness and aesthetic values’ links two disparate concepts, best handled by separation. Annex V, Article 3, of the Protocol covers many topics, and their assessment must be by a composite of frameworks specifically designed for the different purposes set out in the Annex.

A working definition of wilderness in the Antarctic is suggested: ‘Any part of the Antarctic in which neither permanent habitation nor any other permanent evidence of present or past human presence is visible.’ Using this, a very high proportion of the continent will be recognised as having wilderness status. The phrase ‘aesthetic values’ should be seen as part of a wider process—Landscape Character Assessment—that is at present unknown to most in the Antarctic community. It is based on the principle of objective description and classification of landscape character. This basic characterisation can then be put to different uses, one of which may be to make more subjective judgements or evaluations that lead to area designations.

The formation of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC) in 1977 was the first time that Native Alaskans had organized themselves to protect a specific hunting interest. The AEWC's success and prominence has led to the formation of other user-based management regimes for marine mammals in northern Alaska. This paper begins with a description of the creation and development of the AEWC as it fought the ban by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) on bowhead whaling and gained management authority for the Eskimo harvest. Then, three other regimes are examined, each of which focuses on a marine mammal species in northern Alaska. These are the Eskimo Walrus Commission, the Alaska and Inuvialuit Beluga Whale Committee, and the Agreement on Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea between the Inuvialuit Game Council and the North Slope Borough Fish and Game Management Committee. These regimes face the challenge of avoiding a management crisis rather than overcoming one. Without the incentive of a threat to end hunting, these regimes have not had the sense of direction that has enabled the AEWC to achieve its success. However, they have contributed to the management of certain species of wildlife, and are capable of contributing a great deal more.

Considering that phytoplankton assemblages are good bioindicators of environmental conditions, the sensitivity of the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) to climate change, and the importance of some areas of its islands as Antarctic Specially Managed Areas, this work assembles published datasets on phytoplankton biodiversity and ecology in confined coastal areas (embayments) of King George Island, WAP. Over 33 years (1980–2013), 415 species from 122 genera have been identified to species level, being mostly diatoms (371 species), with 10 new species described with local material (6 diatoms, 4 cyanobacteria). The importance of diatoms was indicated by the frequent occurrence of Corethron pennatum, Pseudogomphonema kamtshaticum, and abundant benthic genera in the plankton (e.g. Navicula, Cocconeis). The increased contribution of dinoflagellates after 2010 suggests marked changes in the water column. Early-summer blooms differ between the bays' eastern and western shores, with terrestrial melting and wind-driven upwelling inducing the dominance of benthic species at eastern shores, whereas planktonic diatoms (Thalassiosira, Pseudo-nizschia, and Chaetoceros) are most abundant along western shores and central areas. The importance of an accurate identification of organisms that are becoming key ecological components of the region is discussed, as recent changes in the microflora may affect the entire marine food web.

The number of patents and patent applications related to inventions based on biological material from the Antarctic is increasing. Bioprospecting in the Antarctic is happening with no explicit regulation of property rights or benefit sharing requirements. This leaves patent law as the only legal system to establish exclusive rights to genes, bacteria, and other biological material found in the Antarctic. Patent law is general in form and is applied to all areas of invention with very few adaptations to single fields of innovation. Therefore, it is interesting to identify the issues in patent law in cases in which the biological material from the Antarctic is likely to create challenges or loopholes. The aim of this article is to couple the understanding of this particular legal regime and of biological circumstances in the Antarctic with knowledge of the international patent system for the purpose of contributing to the work of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCMs) regarding bioprospecting in the Antarctic.

The utilization of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in wildlife management has been a prominent topic for several decades. Since its establishment, Arctic Council (AC) has emphasized the importance of TEK and its utilization in its work. Yet, the process of knowledge coproduction in the AC has never been assessed. To what extent has TEK been meaningfully incorporated into the AC? The research uses qualitative content analysis to analyze the AC working groups’ meeting minutes, reports, scientific reports and assessments as well as reports released by Permanent Participants in order to investigate how the TEK has been incorporated into the AC. The study investigates that the process of knowledge coproduction in the AC turned into lip service, and suggests the set of recommendations that could potentially guide the TEK projects in the process of knowledge co-production. These recommendations, including the use of participatory methodology, the use of Indigenous methods, a recognition that TEK is local, application to policy, and better cross-cultural communication, could result in the more meaningful integration of TEK into scientific projects as well as wildlife management policies.

This article analyses the phenomenon of the post-Soviet Russian summer cottage, dacha, in the Arctic. We take an ethnographic comparative perspective for contributing to the refinement of our understanding of human-environment relations and urban anthropology of incomer-northerners, those with roots somewhere outside the north. Evidence from fieldwork in Murmansk Oblast, West Siberia and Sakha-Yakutia shows how for a socialist and post-socialist northern urban livelihood, the dacha has become an indispensable counterpart of life in the urban concrete housing blocks for most Russian northern inhabitants. We explore in this article the importance of dacha for northern identity of urban dwellers, by analysing spheres of individual and collective agency, freedom, attachment to place and land. We conclude that the dacha movement has filled a gap that had been left open by Soviet Arctic urbanisation: a dacha has come to stand for a human-environment relationship that gradually re-introduces rurality to urban life in the Russian Arctic so permanently that dacha places start losing their seasonal character.

Northeast Greenland supports a large indigenous population of musk-oxen (Ovibosmoschatus). Radiocarbon dating of remains of this mammal collected on the terrain surface and from archaeological sites has yielded mid- and Late Holocene ages. The species probably arrived shortly before this part of Greenland became inhabited by the first hunter cultures. Only Late Holocene dates are available from the southern part of northeast Greenland, but the authors suggest that musk-ox spread south to this region at an early date, because there are no physical barriers. The lack of older dates may reflect the lack of palaeo-Eskimo sites with bones.

This article discusses the evaluation of the management of the Laponia World Heritage site (Laponia WHS) in northern Sweden. After inscription on the World Heritage list in 1996, difficulties emerged in establishing a common understanding about the involvement of various stakeholders into the site’s management model, the key point of contention being the influence of the representatives from indigenous Sami people and how that should be organised. In 2011, the management organisation led by Laponiatjuottjudus (the Sami name for the Laponia WHS management organisation) was established and implemented. This organisation gave Sami representatives a majority in the Laponia steering board and the position as chairperson in the board. This marked a remarkable shift in the Swedish national management system of land in not only handing over a state decision-making power to the local level but also to representatives of the indigenous population. The evaluation of the management model presented by Laponiatjuottjudus resulted in a number of responses from several stakeholders participating in a consultation process. These responses, from stakeholders with conflicting positions in relation to the issue described above, are the subject of this study. The analysis of these data collected reveals the existence of four major approaches or narratives to the Laponia WHS, with narratives connected to nature, the indigenous population and local governance, the economic effects of the existing system, and lastly the local community narrative. The study concludes that present management of Laponia WHS, the Laponiatjuottjudus, is a unique attempt to widen the management and planning process that partly interferes with the existing national planning model. At the same time, the analysis reveals that the Sami demands for influence over land management in the north still faces major challenges connected to its colonial legacy.