Russia will submit a well substantiated claim to oil- and gas-rich Arctic territories at the UN in 2013, famous polar explorer Artur Chilingarov said on Tuesday.
“Science and only science can prove who the Arctic shelf belongs to. This is why we are making such a strong push into the Arctic – this year and next. And we are preparing to submit a claim to the UN in 2013,” he said.
“We have revved up this work – a drifting station could have been set up in the spring but we have intensified the effort in line with presidential directives.”
The previous bid was rejected because the evidence Russia presented was based on what was deemed to be “somewhat inaccurate” data, he said.
Chilingarov was personally involved in the effort.
“We had those flying expeditions that landed on ice to study the relief. A total of 1,000 landings were made.”
They used modern methods and equipment to update the Arctic map, based on monitoring and observation data over the past 30 years. However, there were question marks about the “verifiability” of the coordinates of some spots on the ocean floor.
“Indeed, much of the work was carried out at a time when there were no systems like Glonass. But now each spot, each depth measurement can be ascertained through a satellite system and is easily verifiable,” he said.
In 2001, Russia was the first of the five Arctic states to file a request to extend its continental shelf border beyond the standard 200-mile limit. The UN turned down the request, citing a lack of evidence to support the claim. Russia has said it will spend some 1.5 billion rubles ($50 million) to define the extent of its continental shelf in the Arctic in 2010.
Chilingarov leads a Russian polar expedition currently on board the Rossiya nuclear-powered icebreaker that will deliver the SP-38 drifting station with 15 explorers to a drifting ice floe for a year-long stint.
He indicated that the polar expedition, whose fate was in doubt over funding problems, finally received the go-ahead when it refocused to “scientific geopolitics.”
The Rossiya is carrying high-tech echo sounding equipment that can “see through” sediment and rock and will be delivered to the station “to help substantiate our claims to the Arctic Ocean and the Lomonosov Ridge,” said Chilingarov, who made headlines in 2007 when he led a Russian expedition that planted a flag on a contested portion of the Arctic seafloor.
Under the Convention on the Law of the Sea, UN member states can submit claims to extend their boundaries beyond a 200-mile exclusive economic zone. A country has to provide conclusive evidence that its continental shelf extends beyond that point.
The SP-38 station will have a special researcher assigned to study the relief of the ocean floor.
“The shelf is all about depth measurements,” said Tomash Petrovsky, head of the SP-38, adding that modern maps of the ocean floor are rather inaccurate.
“Sometimes the difference between 'mapped' depths and real depths can be as much as 500 meters,” said.
There were uncharted peaks as well as peaks that were identified and given a name but later turned out to be just silt, not rock.
These data are crucial for science and can have different applications, but expedition researchers are noncommittal about the “geopolitical angle.”
“As for geopolitics, we do not discuss such matters,” said Ilya Yagubov, SP-38 deputy chief and Rosgidromet head of the polar and maritime operations department.
“But we need these data,” he said. “We have been studying them for years and decades and it is critical to continue this research.”
He agreed they could be used for geopolitical purposes, but the scientists' focus is always on science.
“There are still many blank spots here,” he said.