3D maps in current affairs

This picks up on the previous Beautiful maps... as well as Arctic Waterfront... re: the distribution of influence over the Arctic in the news of late.

Update: see in A view from the top of the world more on an intriguing lineament bisecting the Arctic from top to bottom on an Alaska Polar Strereographic projetion.

This time let's look at the elevation maps of the area:

• High Resolution Elevation Model of the Arctic (Esri Living Atlas)
• Seabed Sediment Thickness (Esri Living Atlas)

Arctic Waterfront, a measure of geopolitical stakes

 Update: next in the series on the Arctic is here with more data & a 3D view.

A mid-2011 post Beautiful maps in current affairs (note the updates) said: 

UN Convention on the Law of the Sea [...] by Dr Parson of the Southampton UK National Oceanographic Centre [...] described how nations were given an opportunity to claim Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) beyond the standard 200 nautical mile limit (viz. UNCLOS and UNEP). [...]

Beechey Island update

Update: see aerial shots from 1968 posted on Facebook Group "Remembering the Franklin Expedition" here

Note: more at Arctic Summer, Northwest Passage Reloaded, Arctic Urban Legends and Arctic Waterfront, a measure of geopolitical stakes

 A previous blogpost here almost 7 years ago showed how to use a niche product to create detailed elevation model of Beechey Island. Posted on Google Earth here (download & open it in Google Earth, see 'GE' below), it allowed to add a Parks Canada photo of the Franklin Expedition landing site: it was the first one uncovered by University of Alberta's Owen Beatty in 1984, the year before I spent a summer in the Arctic 'nearby' the other side of King William Isl. on the west shore mid-Boothia Peninsula... We were in fact told to report any unusual findings!

Arctic Urban Legends

Update 2: the New York Times highlights here the opportunities & challenges in global warming opening up the Northwest Passage for shorter routes.

Update 1: this follows on another update on the Northwest Passage here.

An update on the Northwest Passage posted to the Facebook Remembering Franklin Expedition Group here, elicited a response from @aaron.spitzer. I post his comment below, which I thanked him for citing the fact my stories were from conversations that weren't fact-checked. That in turn got me to fact-check another story from the same 1986 summer in the Arctic Islands from my now-defunct original website reposted at bottom.

Northwest Passage Reloaded

Update 5: fascinating whodunit at the Antipodes' Australian explorer on ABCnews

Update 4: read here about further stories & urban legends of the High Arctic.

Update 3: see here an update on Beechey Isl. site discovered the year before my visit below

Update 2: see more Arctic stories here on my other blog re-posting some of my original website.

Update 1: right on cue, a photo exhibit on Arctic Life and Climate Change in Budapest HU on Euronews.

Here is an old webpage from 1996 I had to retire a couple years ago. It smacks of urban legend, had I not been told by airport staff in Resolute on Cornwallis Isl., the Arctic Canadian hub (read on):

More polar 'map porn'

[I stole the second half of the title from Reddit group of same name.]

From previous blog posts on Arctic polar maps here and here, let me share two more maps found via my favourite Facebook group Remembering the Franklin Expedition.

Beautiful maps in current affairs

Follows on previous post here, 2026 follow-on here.

Update: "presentation" link below updated, thanks AAPG Customer Experience Center.

Update 2: that area is still a hot spot (Ecocitas).

At presentation in London on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was given a few years ago by Dr Parson of the Southampton UK National Oceanographic Centre. He described how nations were given an opportunity to claim Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) beyond the standard 200 nautical mile limit (viz. UNCLOS and UNEP). The reason AAPG hosted this is because most such extensions revolve around petroleum and mineral rights in the Offshore Continetal Shelves (OCS).

Arctic Dreams, Part II

Follows on 2009 Part I here, 2011 follow-on here.

As the Arctic comes under more scrutiny in the news, I'm reminded of my visit up there 25 years ago when we actually thought of global cooling! But the issues of access and exploitation are certainly not new... And I posted a few polar maps for fun here and here, though the best rendition can be found here.

5 Ws for citizens-as-sensors

Des Kilfoil at the CBC in Calgary, Canada introduced me 20-odd years ago to the 5Ws, the basic tenets of any investigative reporting, from journalists to police, from Wikipedia:

• Who? Who was involved?
• What? What happened (what's the story)?
• Where? Where did it take place?
• When? When did it take place?
• Why? Why did it happen?
• How? How did it happen?

Arctic Dreams

Update: see Part II here

I spent a summer in the Arctic in 1986, the year as Barry Lopez wrote a book titled as above. At a recent job in Kazakhstan, I met ice engineers whose colleagues I knew in Calgary two decades earlier! How do you get marine engineers and naval architects in the middle of two continents in Calgary and Atyrau? By developping offshore oil&gas in the Arctic Islands and the Caspian Sea!