Arctic Geopolitical Configuration
111CIA–World Factbook, Weatherspark: Weather Dashboard, the Sea Around
Us Project, DaftLogic: Advanced Google Maps Distance Calculator, the
OANDA Historical Exchange Rates Database, Ȼɚɪɰɢɰ (2000), and SIPRI
Military Expenditure Dataset. Some variables have been standardized in
order to eliminate nation-specific scaling variations.
A detailed description of data aggregation methods in Word 2010
format is available upon request.^41 In most cases variables were defined
according to their specification in the codebooks for the related datasets.
What follows is a brief description of the configuration of variables. We
considered five geographic variables. Area (thou. sq. km)^42 denotes all
land area (including inland water and glaciers) delimited by provincial
boundaries and/or coastlines, as defined in sub-national respective
administrative division of the Arctic states. The variable was configured at
constant 2010 values.
EEZ and Nat_Sector (thou. sq. km)^43 reflect, respectively, existing and
imaginary (potential) maritime delimitation of the region, recalculated for
each Arctic province according to the length of its coastline facing Arctic
waters.^44 Kainuu, Khanty-Mansii, and Komi provinces are landlocked and
were therefore assigned zero value. Data for Alaska (Arctic sea basin-
only) and Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, and Jan Mayen
were taken from the Sea around Us project. In all other cases, EEZ per
province was not known. We then transformed the available data with
basic arithmetic algorithms. First, for each Arctic state, we found the
length of coastline (km) and EEZ (sq. km). Next, we “reconstructed”
exactly the same length of coastline for each Arctic state in DaftLogic:
Advanced Google Maps Distance Calculator in order to overcome the
coastline paradox.^45 Using the same maps and markers, we found the
percentile share of coastline belonging to each province in the total length
(^41) E-mail: [email protected].
(^42) <www.arcticstat.org>, <www.britannica.com>, <www.ssb.no>, <www.gks.ru>
(^43) EEZ: <www.seaaroundus.org/eez/>, <geography.about.com/Finland>,
<www.scb.se/statistik/MI/MI0812/2012A01/MI0812_2012A01_SM_MI50SM130
1.pdf>, <geography.about.com/library/cia/blcnorway.htm>, <www.gks.ru>,
ɚɪɤɬɢɱɟɫɤɨɝɨ ɫɟɤɬɨɪɚ.”
(^44) We consider not only the Arctic Ocean itself but also Arctic Sea, part of
Northwestern Atlantic, Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, East Siberian Sea,
Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea.
(^45) The length of the coastline depends on the method used to measure it due to
fractal-like properties of coastline.