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USGS calls for integrated Arctic science Report on science gaps in Arctic OCS pushes cooperative approach to addressing multiple questions around oil and gas development By Alan Bailey Petroleum News
On June 23 the U.S. Geological Survey published a report evaluating science needs for informed decision making on offshore development in Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, his agency faced with some tough decision making over planned oil and gas exploration in the Arctic outer continental shelf, had asked USGS to conduct a study into gaps in scientific knowledge relating to energy development in the Arctic OCS region. The report is the end result of that study.
“There is significant potential for oil and gas development in U.S. Arctic waters, but this is a frontier area with harsh weather conditions as well as unique fish and wildlife resources that Alaska’s indigenous people rely on for subsistence,” Salazar said in announcing the release of the report. “To make responsible decisions, we need to understand the environmental and social consequences of development and plan accordingly. This study is helpful in assessing what we know and will help inform determinations about what we need to know to develop our Arctic energy resources in the right places in the right way.”
Different perspectives The report points out the inherent difficulties of identifying scientific needs in a situation where there is a broad spectrum of opinion on the pros and cons of Arctic offshore development, and where the perception of a need is a subjective view often dependent on a person’s perspective on the offshore development debate.
“Science sufficiency and science gaps are not absolutes but exist in large part in the eye of the beholder,” the report says. “As dynamic concepts they are tied to an individual’s or organization’s held beliefs and what weighs most heavily in the decision process when complexity and uncertainty come into play.”
But the report said that the USGS scientists conducting the study had found the existing Arctic science and resource community, especially in Alaska, to be a “model of collaboration,” desiring to understand different views on development and to find ways of moving forward.
While there is a growing inventory of scientific and technical information about the Arctic, science cannot by itself resolve development decisions, the report says. Nevertheless, a few strategic actions to improve people’s knowledge of the Arctic, coupled with transparent decision making processes, might help all parties with vested interests in the region better understand the tradeoffs between development action and inaction, the report says.
Compartmentalized After several years of heightened Arctic research, relatively little appears to be known about the region because the research has been compartmentalized into discreet, focused areas, with limited synthesis between different studies, the report says. And expressing a refrain that recurs throughout the report, the report calls for a more integrated approach to scientific research, involving cooperation between various entities with Arctic interests.
“There is a critical need for large-scale synoptic efforts that synthesize the many different studies on the full range of topics by the numerous researchers and organizations examining the Arctic,” the report says.
At the same time, there is a need to address gaps in scientific knowledge of the Arctic. And, as part of the need for the better integration of disparate scientific knowledge, there is a need to consider more comprehensively the cumulative impacts of multiple offshore activities, rather than evaluating individual actions in isolation, as often tends to happen at present, the report says.
It is also essential that any cumulative impacts analysis includes input from indigenous Arctic communities, with their extensive knowledge of the Arctic ecosystem and environment, and with their interest in maintaining their way of life.
Climate change But compounding the complexity and uncertainty when it comes to Arctic science is the especially profound impact of global climate change on the Arctic region. With shrinking sea ice, the warming ocean, eroding coastline and a host of other climate-related factors impacting the Arctic ecosystem, acquiring scientific knowledge of the region has become a something of a moving target.
“Understanding climate change is an important part of any type of development in the Arctic,” the report says. “More research needs to be conducted on the proposed effects of climate change on factors such as storms and ocean circulation. Storminess will directly affect the safety of oil and gas development.”
More knowledge is needed of the impact of climate change and shrinking sea ice on Arctic species, with local traditional knowledge being more formally incorporated into wildlife resource assessments, the report says.
And the report argues for a cooperative effort to develop higher resolution climate models, to provide a better understanding the complex interactions between climate change and energy development.
“The United States, as one of the Arctic nations, would benefit greatly from participating in the development of fully integrated (atmosphere-ocean-land) regional climate modeling efforts,” the report says. “Continued and enhanced efforts in this arena, specifically for the Arctic region, will provide a fundamental tool needed to better understand the degree and nature of any consequences of climate change as it relates to decisions regarding energy development in the Arctic.”
Oil spill issues When it comes to oil spill response contingency planning, information about the ocean, such as water circulation processes and wind systems, is critical to oil-spill modeling and oil-spill response planning, as well as to gaining an understanding of the impacts of oil spills on biological resources. The complexities of these ocean systems in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas are not well understood, in part because of the difficulties of deploying appropriate instrumentation in a remote, ice-impacted region, the report says.
“Thus, the physical understanding of the Arctic outer continental shelf is not comparable with that of the Gulf of Mexico outer continental shelf, nor is the circulation or weather modeling that informs oil spill trajectory models yet of similar rigor,” the report says.
And the report recommends that the United States and Canada develop ocean monitoring networks that could provide data for the Alaska Ocean Observing System and the under-development Arctic Emergency Response Management Application. There would also be value in international cooperation in the assembly and integration of information and models for energy resource development and assessments of development impacts, the report says.
Also from the perspective of oil spill response, the report cites gaps in knowledge of oil cleanup technologies in sea-ice conditions, and of the behavior and fate of oil spilled in ice. The effectiveness of response techniques such as the in-situ burning of oil and dispersant use in the Arctic requires further research, the report says.
Wildlife interactions The report says that there needs to be a better understanding of the interactions between wildlife and oil and gas development, with one particular concern being the impact of industrial noise on marine mammals.
“Even with multiple studies conducted on ocean noise and marine mammals, large uncertainty still exists in understanding how impacts to individual animals may affect characteristics in the populations, and research is needed on this topic,” the report says.
The report recommends maintaining an inventory of seismic sound sources in the Arctic Ocean, to evaluate the multiple sound sources that an animal might hear. There is also a need for an inventory of other manmade sound sources, such as noise from vessels and aircraft. Current data gaps include knowledge of the overall “ambient noise budgets” of the Arctic, and how these budgets vary over space and time, the report says.
And, on the sound impact side of the ocean noise equation, there is a lack of information about how noise actually affects Arctic wildlife, the report says. Fundamental biologic and habitat information is lacking for a variety of ice-dependent animal species.
3-D seismic There has been substantial progress in recent years in researching Arctic geology, but there is a growing need for 3-D seismic data to better understand the offshore geologic history, and to enable improved estimating of offshore Arctic oil and gas resources for effective resource management, the report says.
“Characterization of the oil reservoir volume and pressure also is needed throughout the Arctic outer continental shelf, as these parameters have a direct bearing on oil spill-risk assessment and oil-spill contingency planning,” the report says.
Improved seismic data would also help with jurisdictional claims over the outer continental shelf under the U.N. Convention on Law of the Sea, the report says. Research into the potential for developing unconventional resources, such as gas hydrate, would also be helpful.
However, given the wide range of opinions on OCS development, with an effective scientific basis for decision making in some areas but gaps in scientific knowledge in others, all Arctic stakeholders need to participate in a transparent decision-making process, preferably using a structured methodology that enables the integration of a complex information and substantial uncertainty, the report says. This type of process would enable learning and adaptation in a changing environment, bringing great value to decisions over the development of oil, gas and other strategic Arctic assets.
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