Oceanography The Official Magazine of
The Oceanography Society
Volume 24 Issue 03

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Volume 24, No. 3
Pages 18 - 25

OpenAccess

US Arctic Research Policy

By Kathryn Moran  and John W. Farrell  
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First Paragraph

The Arctic is “hot” and not only because it’s physically warming, but also because the world is looking north at climate change, resource exploration, undersea territorial claims, tourism, conservation and ecological impacts, and the promise of marine shipping opportunities. The United States, which became an Arctic nation almost 150 years ago by purchasing Alaska from Russia, has economic (primarily natural resources), security, and environmental interests in the North. These interests are encapsulated in two US national policies, one for the Arctic region in general and another specifically oriented toward Arctic research. In addition, “changing conditions in the Arctic Ocean” emerged as one of nine priorities developed by the National Ocean Council as it moves forward with implementing the President’s new ocean policy (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/oceans/policy). Research serves our nation by providing information for policy decisions, and, in turn, policy choices influence the type of research supported by the nation. This article provides an overview of Arctic policy positions and outcomes, with an emphasis on current research policy.

Citation

Moran, K., and J.W. Farrell. 2011. US Arctic research policy. Oceanography 24(3):18–25, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.51.

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Copyright & Usage

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.