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Arctic forces fleet to look north

Sailors should expect more deployments to the icy North, thanks to the melting ice caps and opening of waterways, the Navy’s top oceanographer said.

Rear Adm. David Gove, the oceanographer and navigator of the Navy, said increased maritime traffic, combined with international disputes over access to oil, minerals and natural gas, will mean sailors used to the Atlantic and Pacific soon will be sailing into a realm known only to submariners and icebreaker crews.

“I’d say junior sailors in the Navy today will likely see increasing operations in the Arctic, including exercises, freedom of navigation demonstrations, deterrent [patrols] and possibly security deployments,” Gove said.

Gove knows the region better than most. As navigator on the now-retired attack submarine Flying Fish, he spent a month under the thick Arctic pack ice during the Cold War.

Today U.S. submarines regularly take the shortcut across the top of the globe and train beneath the ice. But scientific measurements have shown the polar ice cap is melting quickly, exposing the area to competition for sovereignty, resources and passage rights.

“It’s going to affect how we operate and how we deploy forces. Within a few years it will be more routine, I’ll call it that,” he said. “I think we may do some exercises I think with the Coast Guard, Canada and the U.K. in order to demonstrate a coalition capability and presence in that part of the world.”

Gove said temperatures have been moving higher and faster in the Arctic than the rest of the globe, providing more navigable water. In a February article for Proceedings magazine titled “Arctic Melt: Reopening a Naval Frontier?” Gove wrote that satellite records show 3 percent less sea ice annually and reported predictions of a 40 percent drop in ice volume by 2050.

“The Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage were both open in 2008 for the first time, ‘open’ meaning less than 10 percent of ice. People are going to start looking seriously at whether it’s a viable commercial alternative to the Suez and Panama canals,” he said. “It’s about 5,000 miles shorter from Asia to Europe via the pole than it is through the Panama Canal.”

For a surface fleet not familiar with or equipped to operate around floating ice and in extreme cold, Gove said the Navy will need to start looking at not only how to train its crews, but also how to strengthen future ships to withstand the hazardous conditions.

“Typically in the past we have not operated extensively in the Arctic region, so we need to be thinking about naval architecture in terms of hull strengthening, protection for rudders and screws, fin stabilizers and bow-mounted sonars,” he said.

The Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard Maritime Strategy pointed to the newly opening Arctic waters as “a potential source of competition and conflict.” Also, the Jan. 12 Arctic Region Policy from the White House directed the military to ensure it can operate effectively around the North Pole.

While debate remains over the reasons behind climate change, Gove said the evidence that the ice cap is melting cannot be denied.

“We’ve got to deal with it. We can’t say there’s no climate change, because that’s not true,” Gove said. “And we can’t say it’s not affecting the Arctic because it’s absolutely true.”

Naval officers at the Pentagon and at 2nd Fleet in Norfolk, Va., also have begun looking at the implications of Arctic operations. But for the Navy, Coast Guard and other agencies, the Arctic remains largely unknown because the water has been inaccessible. Gove said submarines gathered information for the region back in the Cold War, but new charts of the opening waterways will soon be sorely needed.

“Compared to how we operate in other parts of the world, it’s pretty sparse soundings information,” he said. “It doesn’t do you much good to have a U.S. warship operating in an area where they’re not safe because the sounding information is either suspect or nonexistent.”

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