Meanwhile, Up In the Arctic

 

With the Red Sox off last night, our attention naturally turns once again to the Arctic Ocean. 

Elle Hibbert is still on St. Paul Island (57° N) in the Bering Sea. She took her ship, the Yeva, on its first test run and everything checked out fine. Now it's just a waiting game for the weather and the Russian authorities to align so she can make her trip through the Northeast Passage over Asia and Europe and complete her clockwise Arctic Ocean circumnavigation.

Mike Rutherford is currently at sea working on his counter-clockwise, single-season Arctic circumnavigation. He's currently west of the Svalbard Islands at latitude 78.7°, and is hoping to reach the 80th parallel, the northernmost point of his voyage. There's currently a storm brewing northeast of Svalbard, so he has to decide whether to try to pass north over the islands or to cross the 80th and turn back south and pass below the islands. It's all up to the weather.

Tamara Kling is in Nome, Alaska (64.5° N), where she's been in harbor for the past couple of days. Still no word on whether she's planning to bring her ship, the Sardinha 2, home to Brazil by way of the Northeast or the Northwest Passage - either route would be epic and record setting.

Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources announced that three research icebreakers, the Xuelong, Xuelong 2, and Jidi, set sail from the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian to conduct an Arctic  mission. Another research vessel, the Tansuo 3, is expected to join the expedition later. 

As the research ships pass through the Bering Sea, the U.S. Coast Guard is carefully monitoring their activities. Per international law, countries enjoy sovereign rights over natural resources and economic activities within their exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf, which extends up to 200 nautical miles from shore, but they do not possess full authority over the space. The Coast Guard said that while the foreign vessels were permitted to operate within the zone and shelf, they remain vigilant to ensure thar activities comply with international law.

As climate change has opened new shipping routes, exposed untapped resources, and raised the Arctic's strategic value, China’s interest in the region has grown, as has the U.S.'s and others'. China lacks an Arctic coastline, but described itself as a “near-Arctic state” in a 2018 policy paper. It's northernmost point is at latitude 53.5° N, roughly the same latitude as Unalaska Island in the Aleutians, but also as Dublin and Hamburg, although it's recognized that with its subarctic climate, Mohe, the northernmost city in China, has more in common with Siberia than Liverpool.