Hot, angry winds are blowing over the Arctic. Well, the winds relate to the geopolitical atmosphere of the energy rich northern-most continent rather than the climatic set up of the cold and harsh region. Although global warming is having a profound effect on the Arctic, a political controversy has been raging for sometime now involving five North Atlantic countries which has the potential to turn into a military fireball. Ever since the Russians planted a national flag enclosed in a titanium capsule underneath the Arctic shelf late last year, countries such as Canada, the United States, Norway and Denmark are jostling for space in this ever growing fight for Arctic supremacy.

Global warming has resulted in unwanted melting of Arctic glaciers resulting in the opening of new maritime routes. Most importantly, melting of ice has led to discovery of previously unexplored natural resources namely natural gas and oil. Recent US geological survey reports suggest that the Arctic holds nearly 25% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas.

This data has pushed the Arctic rim countries including the superpowers United States and Russia to open up a serious political debate to determine the legal(maybe illegal)owners of the region. With so much natural rich and cost effective trade routes on offer, the Arctic is any ambitious nation’s envy. Russia’s actions last year were both theatrical and aggressive given the tensions in the region.

Canada and the United States are also in the middle of a bitter diplomatic row with the ownership of the Northwest Passage sea route. While Ottawa has poured in billions of Canadian dollars to defend the country’s sovereignty over the Arctic, the melting of the previously unexplored Northwest Passage due to global warming is set to create political conflicts with Washington that could snowball into a much larger military issue. The Northwest Passage remains frozen almost throughout the year, but environmentalists have suggested that with the rise in the atmospheric temperature, the passage would be navigable for some part of the summer months providing a useful sea route linking the Arctic to the Pacific through the Arctic archipelago.

Even if the Northwest Passage remains open for a few months in the summer, trade and military ships would avoid long hours of navigation and high fuel usage cost that adversely affect northern ships monetarily going round the Panama Canal. These points do make sense why the Canadians are desperate to fight it off with the Americans for a claim of the Arctic territory.

Now the Danes and the Norwegians are not far off either. In a bid to tone down their dependence on the Russian oil and gas, Denmark and Norway with the support of the European Union have claimed ownership of the Arctic resulting in an angry response from Moscow which has invested heavily on militarizing the Arctic zone.

All these five countries carry out geological, scientific and military explorations to the Arctic on a regular basis. As global warming melts the Arctic ice bit by bit, chances of a full scale territorial conflict are imminent that could have catastrophic results for the very existence of this world.

Image Credit: Instablogs