In the last few years, questions pertaining to cooperation and conflict in the Arctic have emerged in the media, as well as within academia. While many scholars have rightly rejected the prospect of an imminent escalation of conflicts, the current debate is insufficiently informed by the literature on political order within the field of international relations (IR). In this article, the author attempts to explain the political order in the Arctic, situating his analysis within the broader context of IR theory. Guided by the perspectives of ‘hegemonics stability’, ‘balance of power’ and ‘Kantian internationalist theory’, focus is laid on power capabilities, international regimes and domestic regime type as independent variables. The main finding is that the Arctic is a multipolar ‘region,’ the enduring stability and peacefulness of which can be explained by both the role played by international regimes, and by the balance of power between the ‘stakeholders’ involved. The paper concludes by explaining how and why the smaller littoral Arctic states are the prime beneficiaries of this order.

This article studies the role of observers under both the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) and the Arctic Council (AC) before the Nuuk ministerial meeting that took place in May 2011. In this meeting, the AC actors were able to find consensus on criteria for admitting new observers, an issue that has received much media attention, given that China and the European Union, for example, are queuing to become observers in the AC. It is of importance to examine the content of these recently adopted Nuuk observer rules and their potential to impact decision-making on whether the external actors can be included as observers. Moreover, this article studies how, if at all, the Nuuk observer rules might affect the position of the AC in the broader setting of circumpolar cooperation.

Climate change has been identified as compromising food security in many case studies with Inuit communities in Canada. Largely neglected in the scholarship however, is research focusing on the gendered dimensions of Inuit food security in a changing climate. This paper reports on a community based participatory research project involving semi-structured interviews with Inuit women (n = 42), 10 focus groups (n = 40), key informant interviews (n = 8), and participant observation, to identify and characterise the determinants of food security among Inuit females in the community of Arviat, and examine the role played by climate and climate change. Results indicate that significant changes in climate being observed are not currently affecting female food security, with socio-economic-cultural factors primary determinants of food security. The nature of the traditional food system in Arviat based on harvesting land mammals reduces sensitivity to changing sea ice conditions which have been problematic in other Inuit communities. However, dependence on a limited number of animals for diet (primarily caribou, arctic char) increases sensitivity to potential future disruptions caused by climate change to these species and reduces response diversity as a coping mechanism.

The physical behaviour of oil interacting with soils subjected to seasonal frost or permafrost was investigated. An experimental programme was carried out to investigate the transportation and spreading of oil on a frozen surface, and transportation and accumulation of oil into freezing or frozen soils. The results show that spreading of oil at the surface at air temperatures below freezing depends on oil composition, soil temperature, and the type of mineral surface. It was observed that an ice surface has the least spreading and the greatest wetting angle of the surfaces studied. The oil penetration into frozen soils depends on soil and oil composition and temperature conditions. It was observed, as expected, that oil accumulation in frozen soils decreases with increasing ice content in the pores. However, penetration of oil components is observed even in completely ice-saturated soils. Freezing of oil-saturated soils causes a redistribution of the oil components. In sandy soils, the oil concentrates in a thawed zone in front of the freezing front; in clay soils, the oil can accumulate in the frozen zone under certain temperature conditions. A summary of the influence of various factors affecting oil behaviour in frozen and freezing soils is presented based on the experimental data and published data from other authors.

During the austral summer 1977–78 the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) conducted a fifth season of airborne radio echo sounding in Antarctica as part of a joint project with the US National Science Foundation Division of Polar Programs (NSF-DPP) and the Technical University of Denmark (TUD). In addition, trials were undertaken of a magnetometer installation, developed and operated, under NSF contract, by the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of the Johns Hopkins University, USA.

The effects of trampling on six types of vegetation and their underlying soils were investigated on sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island. One hundred and fifty foot-passes per year for at least the past 10 years have occurred on a typical 6-km stretch of walking track on the island's upland plateau. Trampling favours vascular plants including exotics, especially Poa annua, while bryophytes and lichens are more common in undisturbed vegetation. The abundance of 19 of the 39 most common species appears to be affected by trampling. Track width is positively correlated with exposure and wet soils, and trampling increases the soil bulk density of the track. The contrast between the soil bulk density of the trampled and untrampled soils increases with increasing exposure. While present environmental damage is within an acceptable range over the majority of the island, the extreme environments are likely to suffer unacceptable levels of damage if increased usage occurs with more tourism or expansion of scientific and related activities. This is demonstrated by the diversion of a short section of plateau track in an atypically heavily used area; the diversion sustained substantial damage after 890 foot-passes during a 15-month period.

A quarter of the terrestrial Acari recorded from Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands are parasitic haematophages or non-feeding phoretics associated with other larger and more mobile animals, especially sea birds and pterygote insects. Although flying sea birds are effective vectors of zoohoric mites into the region, penguins are not and merely serve as reservoir hosts. Similarly, most of the mites associated with insects were accidentally introduced by man as free-living adults that subsequently utilised a range of alien and indigenous insects as local dispersal mechanisms.

In the future, data from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) will be employed to map snow in an automated environment at a resolution of 250 m to 1 km. Using Landsat thematic mapper (TM) data, an algorithm, SNOMAP, has been developed to map snow-covered area. This algorithm will be used, with appropriate modification, with MODIS data following the launch of the first Earth Observing System (EOS) platform in 1998. SNOMAP has been shown to be successful in mapping snow in a variety of areas using TM data. However, significant errors may be present in mountainous areas due to effects of topography. To increase the accuracy of mapping global snow-covered area in the future using MODIS data, digital elevation model (DEM) data have been registered to TM data for parts of Glacier National Park, Montana, so that snow cover on mountain slopes can be mapped. This paper shows that the use of DEM data registered to TM data increases the accuracy of mapping snow-covered area. Using SNOMAP on a subscene within the 14 March 1991 TM scene of northwestern Montana, 215 km2 of snow is mapped when TM data are used alone to map the snow cover. We show that about 1062 km2 of snow are actually present as measured when the TM and DEM data are registered. Approximately five times more snow is present when the effects of topography are considered for this subscene, which is in a rugged area in Glacier National Park. A simple model has been developed to determine the relationship between terrain relief and the amount of correction that must be applied to map actual snow-covered area in Glacier National Park using satellite data alone.

The Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1912–14, led by Douglas Mawson, encountered incredibly strong, persistent katabatic winds at Cape Denison and along the coastal stretches of Terre Adélie and George V land (Fig 1). The mean wind speed at Cape Denison was 19.3 ms−1 [43.2 mph] which far surpassed all previous surface wind records. The French expedition of 1950–52 to Port Martin, some 60 km west of Cape Denison, provided confirmation of extraordinary windiness of the region. ordinary windiness of the region. According to Mather and Miller (1967), the winds at coastal Terre Adélie and George V Land are about 70 per cent greater than those recorded at stations similarly located at the foot of the steep ice escarpment. Table 1 lists the mean monthly resultant winds at Cape Denison and Port Martin, along with four other coastal stations known to be influenced by katabatic winds. Included in the table is the record of Dumont d'Urville, situated along the same coastal stretch as Cape Denison and Port Martin. Despite its location on an island 5 km from the base of the ice slopes, Dumont d'Urville frequently experiences strong katabatic winds comparable to most stations located at the base of the steep coastal ice slope. Its wind record reflects the strong katabatic component along Terre Adelie and George V Land.

This article is concerned with the contemporary Antarctic and the kinds of sovereignty performances undertaken by claimant states such as Australia. Notwithstanding the entry into force of the Antarctic Treaty, claimant states have used, what this article terms, ‘treaty sovereignty’ further to entrench their sovereign rights, especially within public culture. Using Australia as a detailed example, the article considers how a range of activities including anti-whaling developments alongside contemporary public commentary has on the one hand stressed ‘sovereign rights’ and yet on the other hand, revealed a sense of anxiety and fear regarding the role of others; what one might term overall a form of ‘sovereignty watch’. In conclusion, the paper speculates on whether the treaty parties are entering an unstable phase of Antarctic co-existence precisely because of the kinds of behaviours that ‘treaty sovereignty’ encourages.

The Arctic and nearby remote areas are attracting more attention than ever before, because of their abundance of physical natural resources as well their wilderness environments which have become a major attraction for tourists. But use of land for tourism practices can lead to conflicts with other industries that utilise natural resources. Tourism in Iceland has grown rapidly in recent decades and nature and the wilderness is the main attraction. As well as being an important resource for the tourism industry, wilderness and natural areas are also very valuable for hydro–electric and geothermal power production. During the latter half of the last century several glacier–fed rivers in the highlands were dammed and hydropower plants built. Now there are plans for further exploitation of the natural resources which creates challenges and conflicts as many of the proposed power plants are located in natural areas, some of which are defined as wilderness. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the development of tourism in the Icelandic highlands and power production development and the challenges created by the changing idea of natural resources. It discusses a governmental project which is intended to solve the challenging conflicts about the use of natural areas. The project exposed the fact that the energy resources in the country are a far more limited resource than has previously been assumed. The power production industry now has to share the limited natural resources with the tourism industry. Thereby the ideas about natural resources and their utilisation are being re–defined by Icelandic society, depending on technology, global influences and other social trends.

Published marine sediment core records and new information from terrestrial aeolian deposits from the surroundings of Igaliku Fjord, south Greenland, have been used for a tentative reconstruction of multi-decadal to centennial scale changes in the intensity of regional atmospheric circulation since the Medieval Warm Period. The marine data show that aeolian activity over southern Greenland was generally enhanced in the Medieval Warm Period between c. AD 900 and c. AD 1300. The preliminary data from the onshore aeolian deposits suggest that wind activity was strongest after AD 1000, reaching a peak close to AD 1300, after which atmospheric circulation intensity decreased. A comparison with the marine data shows that this decrease coincides with increased advection of Polar Water by the East Greenland Current at the beginning of the Little Ice Age. The aeolian sediment record suggests foehn wind activity displaying multi-decadal oscillations in the range of known north Atlantic climate oscillations. The intensity of erosional processes in south Greenland has previously often been attributed to farming activities initiated after AD 1000 by the Norse who disappeared a few hundred years later. Our findings suggest, however, that erosion in this area is mainly related to marked variations in wind strength.

The Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) has conducted long-term meteorological studies over the Arctic basin and adjacent Siberian seas. Standard measurements of precipitation and snow geophysical properties were made, consistent with methods recommended by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). An extensive set of snow and precipitation data has been collected during the last 40 years and has been assembled into a digital database. These data are now kept at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and World Data Center A for Glaciology. The geophysical properties of snow and sea ice together affect the conductive, turbulent, and radiative energy exchanges between the ocean and atmosphere. The spatial and temporal variations in these exchanges have an impact on virtually all the physical processes operating across this interface. This paper describes some of the basic characteristics of these snow and precipitation data, including seasonal and interannual variability.

The ways by which contaminants in freezing ground disperse and interact with associated ecosystems is a new and challenging field of applied research that is crucial to effective assessment, monitoring, and remediation in cold regions. Three key issues have been identified as needing urgent research and development. The first concerns the development and application of meaningful environmental guidelines for cold regions. This usually means that contaminants in freezing ground per se need to be considered in their broadest context by also addressing associated ecosystems, such as the receiving marine environment. The second issue concerns developing best practice for bioremediation of seasonally frozen soils. Of particular concern are the risks, benefits, and costs of using so-called bioproducts, which may not offer substantial improvements over biostimulation of indigenous cold-adapted organisms. The third issue concerns the need for assessment and monitoring protocols and cost-effective analytical tools. In this respect the potential use of field portable instruments deserves careful consideration and on-site testing. Taken together, development of these issues during the coming years will be crucial if the science behind managing contaminants in freezing ground is to catch up with the knowledge that underpins the remediation industry elsewhere.

The United States has more than 1000 individual areas of petroleum-contaminated soil at formerly used defense (FUD) sites located in cold regions. This paper investigates biotreatment systems based on exploiting naturally occurring phenomena in the rhizosphere — the soil adjacent to and influenced by plant roots. Rhizosphere-based remediation systems would be inexpensive to implement and maintain and would be applicable to remote or permafrost sites. Herein, this paper provides the rationale for using rhizosphere-based biotreatment systems and some initial results. In both laboratory and field studies, successful plant germination, plant growth, and root intrusion into and through contaminated soil are demonstrated.

Using a Captina silt loam in a 10-week laboratory study, the effects of vegetation and contamination on microbial numbers were compared. The vegetation treatments included an unvegetated control and a vegetated treatment seeded with bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum). The contamination treatments included an uncontaminated control and a treatment with 2000 mg pyrene kg-1 soil added. Microbial numbers at 10 weeks were not significantly influenced by the contaminant level of 2000 mg pyrene kg-1 soil compared to the control. However, microbial numbers were greater in the rhizosphere of the bahiagrass-vegetated soil compared to the unvegetated soil.

In a 34-week field study, total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) concentrations of a diesel-contaminated soil decreased significantly more in the rhizosphere+nutrient treatment compared to the control that was not vegetated or fertilized. Bacterial numbers in the field study were 287 times greater in the rhizosphere+nutrient treated soils than in the control treatments. Measurable TPH compounds in the plant tissue were insignificant. The data demonstrated that rhizosphereenhanced treatment of organic-contaminated soils can be effective in reducing soil petroleum concentrations and may be a cost-effective strategy particularly suited for treating cold-region sites where remediation options are limited by cost, remoteness of the site, and/or brevity of the treatment season.

This paper presents new census data and population estimates for penguins, blue-eyed shags, and southern giant petrels from 26 sites in the Antarctic Peninsula, collected by the Antarctic Site Inventory from 1994 to 2000. For nine sites, population data or estimates are published for the first time. The newly discovered gentoo penguin population of 215 nests at Herofna Island (63°24'S, 54°36'W) represents the easternmost location where this species has been found breeding in the Peninsula. All three pygoscelid penguins — gentoo, Adelie, and chinstrap — were found breeding at Gourdin Island (63° 12'S, 57° 18'W), the fourth known site where these species nest contiguously in the Peninsula. During the period, significant declines in nesting populations of blue-eyed shag were documented at three northwestern Peninsula locations.

Evidence is provided from the joint application of tephrochronology and palynology in two Icelandic locations — the island of Papey off the east coast and Seljaland in the south. The Papey study relates to vegetation change around the time of volcanic ash deposition from the eruption of Katla in 1755. This produced various hypotheses concerning volcanic impacts and land-use activities, including changes in nutrient inputs, grazing activity, and climate. Similar data have been obtained from Seljaland, where a group of farms was affected by fall-out from the 1947 eruption of Hekla. The patterns of pollen-based vegetational change were similar at both locations, enabling a fuller exploration of floristic and anthropogenic responses to ash deposition. The Seljaland data are influenced by the known removal of livestock in order to guard against the effects of fluorosis. The resultant cessation of grazing was probably responsible for much of the vegetational change apparent in the pollen record, and this represents a credible recent analogue for processes that may have taken place in Papey in 1755.

In an earlier article, tracing the development of commercial tourism in the Antarctic (Reich, 1980), I presented the currently available information on the scale and concentration of tourist activities. From this examination the broad conclusion was that over a 24-year period since tourism began, numbers of visitors landing, primarily from ships but also from aircraft, averaged less than 840 a year. Roughly three-quarters of these visits were concentrated on about nine places, all of which were occupied scientific research stations. In this paper an attempt is made, partly based on first-hand experience of a tourist cruise, to gauge the impact of sea-borne tourism. A description of the cruise precedes consideration of tourism in relation to the Antarctic Treaty. Planning issues are raised in certain recommendations on tourism adopted by the Antarctic Treaty nations, and these are examined. There are more questions than answers, partly due to lack of data, but I hope that by drawing attention to these issues further consideration will be given to them.

A cold-tolerant fungal strain Thelebolus microsporus was investigated for the first time for its pigment and fatty acid production. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis confirmed the presence of carotenoid pigment. Gas chromatography observations showed the presence of major fatty acids: myristic acid (14:0), palmitic acid (16:0), stearic acid (18:0), heptadecanoic acid (17:0), linolenic acid (18:3) and linoleic acid (18:2). Of these, linolenic acid, a polyunsaturated fatty acid, was present in substantial quantity, suggesting that it may have a role in adapting the fungus to low Antarctic temperatures by modulating membrane fluidity. The commercial application of linolenic acid is as a food supplement for humans suffering from eczema, cardiovascular disease and diabetic neuropathy. Another fatty acid, linoleic acid, a precursor of 1-octen-3-ol, is the principal aromatic compound in most fungi and has also been documented in this strain. Screening of the fungal culture for extracellular enzyme activity for amylase, protease, lipase, chitinase and cellulase was carried out. The isolate showed maximum α-amylase activity at 20°C, suggesting effective applications as a detergent additive, in textile processing and in the food industry.