The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 90 billion barrels of oil, 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are recoverable in the frozen region north of the Arctic Circle.
And the fight over who owns those resources may turn out to be the most important territorial dispute of this century. Russia, Canada, the United States, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland all have a stake in the Arctic's icy real estate.

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Featuring plenary sessions on the latest research happening in the Arctic, Bering Sea/Aleutians, and Gulf of Alaska, as well as exciting keynote speakers, poster presentations, events for students, and much more.

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A transport plane working with an international expedition has crashed in the Antarctic, although all four people on board survived, a Russian polar explorer said on Monday.
Artur Chilingarov, the Russian president's special representative for international cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctic, said that the plane could not be repaired and that the plans for the international expedition could change.

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Arctic sea ice reflects sunlight, keeping the polar regions cool and moderating global climate. According to scientific measurements, Arctic sea ice has declined dramatically over at least the past thirty years, with the most extreme decline seen in the summer melt season.
Read timely scientific analysis year-round below. We provide an update during the first week of each month, or more frequently as conditions warrant.

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Initiated by the International Polar Foundation and supported by the governments of both Belgium's Flemish and French communities, 'Class Zero Emission' will be launched on March 2nd, 2009, in Brussels. This interactive exhibition centre serves to introduce students to the breathtaking world of the Arctic and Antarctic.

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New research indicates that the ocean could rise in the next 100 years to a meter higher than the current sea level – which is three times higher than predictions from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC.

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Arctic residents living along the coast of the Beaufort Sea have become acutely sensitive to the forces of nature, with scientists warning that rising seas and melting permafrost could erode away at their communities.
Parts of Tuktoyaktuk, a hamlet in the northwest corner of the Northwest Territories, were under sea water last summer, and flooding is becoming an annual occurrence, the community's mayor said.

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Using a 218-year-long temperature record from a Bermuda brain coral, researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have created the first marine-based reconstruction showing the long-term behavior of one of the most important drivers of climate fluctuations in the North Atlantic.

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“Important changes are under way in the High North which will have a broad impact on international affairs”, NATO says in a press release. In late January, the alliance will hold a meeting on its Arctic challenges in Reikjavik, Iceland.
“The economic interests are reflected in a growing global awareness in the region, competing claims by relevant stakeholders, and resumed military presence in the area. As it is a region of enduring strategic importance for NATO and allied security, developments in the High North require careful and ongoing examination”, the press release continues.

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A Russian expedition led by a polar explorer and MP plans to arrive in the Antarctic on Saturday to inspect Russia's polar stations.
Arthur Chilingarov, the Russian president's special representative for international cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctic, will be joined by lawmakers from the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
The group will also examine the living and working conditions of Russian polar explorers in Antarctica. The Antarctica-2009 expedition, launched on January 12, will last until January 24.

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This week the White House released a long-awaited document broadly laying out U.S. policy toward the Arctic.
The presidential directive was issued with just a few days to go in the Bush administration, but the policy review behind it lasted about two years. The last such review was completed in 1994.

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Incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged cooperation in implementing a comprehensive new Arctic policy that could have ramifications for oil and gas development and shipping in the region.
Clinton gave the assurances to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, at a confirmation hearing this week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Read the document here

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The local administration in Longyearbyen on Svalbard has approved to spend 3,3 million NOK on improvements of the harbor.
The plans include purchase of a new mooring boat, expansion of the existing tourist quay and installation of a system for water delivery to large vessels.

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At the international conference “Arctic Frontiers”, Norway, EU and Russia agreed that there is no need for any new international treaty on the Arctic.
Both Norway and the European Union believe that the UN Sea Treaty, The Arctic Council, The International Maritime Organization and the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf are sufficient instruments for management of the Arctic and the waiting climate changes.

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Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang Tuesday urged scientists to push forward polar and oceanic exploration to serve the country's modernization drive and benefit the human society as well.
Li made the remarks after meeting with members of China's 25th Chinese Antarctic expedition team, the 20th oceanic expedition, and scientists working in the country's Antarctic and Arctic stations via telephone.

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The impacts of less sea ice in polar areas are more crucial for global climate change then previously assumed. Oceanographer Cecilie Mauritzen says that research related to the International Polar Year (IPY) has proven that human activity has a major role in the reducing amount of sea ice in the Arctic.

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An international team of researchers, including Antoni Rosell, ICREA researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) and professor of the Department of Geology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, who participated as a member of the direction team, have created MARGO (Multiproxy Approach for the Reconstruction of the Glacial Ocean Surface), a new quantitative tool which reconstructs the sea surface temperature during the Last Glacial Maximum.

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During her visit to Arkhangelsk today, Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Elisabeth Walaas announced that Norway will open a honorary consulate in the northern Russian city. Northwest Russia is important for Norway, the deputy minister highlighted.

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Russian authorities plan to build a fish processing factory in the Russian settlement of Barentsburg on Svalbard.
This was announced by Head of the Russian Fisheries Committee Andrey Krayny during his visit in Murmansk on Thursday.
- The factory will make it easier for Russian fishing vessels to deliver the catch, Mr. Krayny said, as the transit from the fishing grounds to Barentsburg only takes one hour. The factory will also secure employment for the Russian population in Barentsburg, he added.

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Almost 600 participants at the Arctic Frontiers Conference in Tromsø discuss the Age of the Arctic under the headline “Balancing human use and ecosystem protection”.
"From the Cold War we learned that it is necessary that countries speak together in a formalized manner to avoid armed conflicts. I think that the Convention of the Law of the Sea is a gift from the United Nations when we are going to discuss the future of the Arctic Sea."
Thus concluded the Swedish former UN ambassador Hans Corell Monday on the first session of the Arctic Frontiers Conference in Tromsø, Norway.
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UNEP/GRID-Arendal, with financial support from the Research Council of Norway (Forskningsrådet), have released a set of five free downloadable educational posters for the International Polar Year (IPY), aimed at high school students. This project supports the education, outreach, and communications efforts of IPY.
The posters create awareness of IPY and its research activities by addressing the question: “Why, and how, are the polar regions and polar research important to all people on Earth?” These posters present and illustrate a broad sample of polar issues and facts - they are a “textbook” for your wall.
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A team of Arctic explorers, led by Pen Hadow, travelling to the North Pole to investigate climate change, may have to swim for up to two hours a day because of melting ice caps.
The £3 million Caitlin Arctic Survey, to set off later this month, will be the first Arctic expedition to take regular radar measurements of the depth of the sea ice. It is hoped the results will give a definitive picture of how fast the ice caps are melting and how long it will take before they disappear altogether.
Mr Hadow, who will lead the British expedition, has been travelling to the far north since the late 80s and was the first man to trek to the North Pole solo in 2003.
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Any economic stimulus package in the upcoming federal budget should contain as much as $1 billion for Inuit housing, education and economic development programs, says Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.
The two-and-a-half-hour meeting between aboriginal leaders, provincial and territorial premiers, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper came one day before first ministers gathered separately to discuss ways to kick start a flagging Canadian economy.
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A seven-day trip aboard a U.S. icebreaker proves at least one thing about global warming: Things are getting very strange in the great white North.
GEORGE NEOKAK, a 48-year-old Inupiat Eskimo whale hunter, is getting worried. Where are the whales? He stands on the prow of the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, three days out of Barrow, Alaska, cruising 30 miles offshore in the Beaufort Sea. It's early August, and at 11:30 P.M. the sun is low and the sky a glorious, tropical-looking array of pinks and lavenders. The Arctic water is as calm as an Everglades pond.
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A leakage from Russia’s National Security strategy document reveals an uncompromising tone about the Arctic. "It cannot be ruled out that the battle for raw materials will be waged with military means," the explosive document reads, according to a comprehensive analytical article in the German Magazine Der Spiegel on Thursday.
In the beginning of January BarentsObserver.com presented the first information from Russia’s Security Council on the country’s new national security plan, which highlights the Arctic.
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NATO’s chief played down the risk of military confrontation in the Arctic as the melting polar ice cap threatens to trigger a race between Western countries and Russia for oil and gas resources.
Increased Russian bomber patrols over the North Atlantic and the planting of the Russian flag on the seabed are not even a “nuisance,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.
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Thriving only in near-freezing waters, creatures such as Antarctic sea spiders, limpets or sea urchins may be among the most vulnerable on the planet to global warming, as the Southern Ocean heats up.
Isolated for millions of years by the chill currents, exotic animals on the seabed around Antarctica -- including giant marine woodlice and sea lemons, a sort of bright yellow slug -- are among the least studied in the world.
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Federal scientists will soon take on their most ambitious effort yet to map the Arctic Ocean seabed, four years before Canada's deadline to try to extend its Arctic sovereignty as part of an international treaty.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Canada has until 2013 to submit its claim over a vast area of the Arctic Ocean — and any potential mineral and gas resources — past its existing boundaries. The federal government has slated $109 million for the mapping work.
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Many damaging effects of climate change are already basically irreversible, researchers declared Monday, warning that even if carbon emissions can somehow be halted temperatures around the globe will remain high until at least the year 3000.
“People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years – that's not true,” climate researcher Susan Solomon said in a teleconference.
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The Arctic is under siege as never before.
The Russians send submarines deep below the North Pole. The Americans dispatch surveillance planes to monitor new threats in the north. And Canada is now forced to scramble to defend territories it has ignored for too long.
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Estimates show that the Norwegian coal mining company Store Norske Group at Svalbard can expect a 100 million EUR surplus for 2008.
2008 has been a good year for coal mining with a high price level on the global market, especially in the first half of the year. In 2007 the average price per ton coal was 82 USD, while the average price has been 160 USD in 2008.
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The technical design of „Aurora Borealis“ - icebreaker, deep-sea drilling vessel and multi-purpose research ship for the Polar Seas, has been presented.
On December 3, Finnish engines manufacturer Wärtsilä and The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research presented the technical design of the European research vessel «Aurora Borealis», a multi-purpose icebreaker, deep-sea drilling, and research ship for polar sea conditions.
Read About AURORA BOREALIS here
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