Improvements in Arctic broadband communication are under way.
This article highlights the many ways that countries co-operate and coordinate in the cold, dark, and dangerous Arctic region.
Cold war co-operation extended to helping revive polar bear populations, but also, “Satellite-based search and rescue exists only because of a remarkable exercise in Cold War co-operation.
“In 1979, Canada, France, the United States and the Soviet Union created Cospas-Sarsat, which pools the capabilities of dozens of satellites and ground stations.
“The first rescue took place in northern British Columbia in 1982, just weeks after the first satellite in the system, COSPAS-1, was launched by the Soviet Union.”
Space exploration is remarkably international, even resulting in a famous handshake in space.
Remoteness and extreme conditions contribute to sharing the financial and human risk in co-operative efforts such as search and rescue, emergency response, and Arctic ice-breaking.
“When a South Korean fishing trawler sank on the Russian side of the Bering Sea in December, 2014, Russian officials requested assistance from the U.S. Coast Guard, which immediately sent two ships and an aircraft.”
“The countries that contribute satellites and ground stations to Cospas-Sarsat obtain greater coverage and therefore faster notifications of distress signals than they could ever obtain on their own, given the high costs of building and launching satellites.”
Read more here:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-cold-dark-and-dangerous-the-connection-between-the-arctic-and-outer/