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The future of the Arctic will be less white wilderness, more black gold, a report on oil reserves in the High North has signalled this week.
The first comprehensive assessment of oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle, carried out by American geologists, reveals that underneath the ice, the region may contain as much as a fifth of the world's undiscovered yet recoverable oil and natural gas reserves.
This includes 90 billion barrels of oil, enough to supply the world for three years at current consumption rates, or to supply America for 12, and 47 trillion cu m of gas, which is equal to about a third of the world's known gas reserves.
The significance of the report is that it puts firm figures for the first time on the hydrocarbon riches which the five countries surrounding the Arctic - the US, Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark (through its dependency, Greenland) - have been eyeing up for several years.
It is the increasingly rapid melting of the Arctic sea ice, which last September hit a new record summer low, and of land-based ice on Greenland, which is opening up the possibility of the once frozen wasteland providing a natural resources and minerals bonanza, not to mention a major new transport route. Last year the fabled North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific along the top of Canada was navigable for the first time.
Scientists consider that global warming is responsible for the melting, with the high latitudes of the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.
Environmentalists see this as a massive danger, with the melting of Greenland's land-based ice adding to sea-level rise, while the melting of the sea ice uncovers a dark ocean surface that absorbs far more of the sun's heat than the ice did, and thus acts as a "positive feedback" reinforcing warming.
The melting of Greenland's ice sheet has accelerated so dramatically that it is triggering earthquakes for the first time, with movements of gigantic pieces of ice creating shockwaves with a magnitude of up to 3 on the Richter scale. Conservationists are also concerned about the threat to the Arctic's ecosystems and wildlife.
The Arctic countries' governments, on the other hand, see it as a massive opportunity, and are already positioning themselves to claim stakes in the seabed of the Arctic Ocean, if - as many climate scientists now believe will happen - it becomes ice-free in summer within a couple of decades.
This week's oil and gas study, carried out by the US Geological Survey, reveals that most of the reserves are lying close to the shore.
Much of the oil is off Alaska; much of the natural gas off the Russian coastline. There appear to be only small reserves under the unclaimed heart of the Arctic.
However, what the report does do is to indicate a very different future for one of the world's last remaining pristine and utterly unspoilt regions.
"Before we can make decisions about our future use of oil and gas and related decisions about protecting endangered species, native communities and the health of our planet, we need to know what's out there," said the US Geological Survey's director, Mark Myers, in releasing the report.
The geologists studied maps of subterranean rock formations across the 21 million sq km above the Arctic Circle to find areas with characteristics similar to oil and gas finds in other parts of the world.
The report did not include an estimate for how long it might take to bring the reserves to markets, but it would clearly be a substantial period.
Frank O'Donnell, president of the US environmental group Clean Air Watch, said not only do polar bears and other wildlife within the Arctic Circle face losing their habitat due to global warming, they would be hurt by companies searching for oil.
"The oil industry goes up there and industrialises what has been a pristine area ... suddenly it becomes the new Houston."
- INDEPENDENT
