Dreams of Black Gold

German Chancellor Angela Merkel heads to Greenland on Thursday for a two-day visit with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

The two politicians will ply the Ilulissat fjord, over 300 kilometers (186 miles) above the Arctic Circle, where one of the world's biggest glaciers is gradually melting. Global warming is especially evident on the Danish island, where the temperatures have been increasing twice as quickly as the world average.

"It's good that a German chancellor examines the issues of climate change where its effects are especially easy to recognize," said German climate expert Peter Lemke. "Politicians should also see for themselves where and how climate change occurs."

Merkel's not the first politician to visit the spot. She follows in the footsteps of Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, and presidential candidate John McCain.

International interest

And the region hasn't only drawn attention due to growing concern about climate change. The Arctic is believed to be rich in resources. However, until the ice started to melt, they were inaccessible. Climate researchers now say that the Arctic could be ice-free by the summer of 2040. Shipping is likely to take off, and it may then be affordable to excavate the gas and oil thought to be buried there.

In early August, Russian researchers planted a rust-free titanium Russian flag on the ocean floor beneath the North Pole to mark their country's claim to the area. Denmark has also sent an Arctic mission to back up its claims to the region. And Canadian Premier Stephen Harper announced plans last week to establish a deep-sea port and a military base in the Arctic.

A study by the US Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. But some say that's just speculation.

Geophysicist Wilfried Jodak of Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) is one of the skeptics. The geo-scientific data from the area north of the Arctic Circle was too meager to identify any deposits, he said.

Claims deadline looms

"Arctic research is expensive and was so unattractive until a few years ago, that hardly any public means were provided for research," he said, adding that expanding territorial claims had not previously been a factor at all. "The Russians got that rolling."

Moscow is in a hurry to prove that the Lomonosov Ridge in the northern Arctic Ocean is a continuation of the Russian mainland. The 1982 UN Convention on Law of the Sea allows states to use the waters up to 200 sea miles (370 kilometers) off their coasts as economic areas. Those governments that want to make further claims must submit requests to the UN by May 2009.

Any state missing the 2009 deadline risks losing UN recognition of the claim. Countries that have not yet ratifed the Law of the Sea Convention, including the United States, are not bound by the 2009 deadline.

The Arctic push is a result of this deadline, according to Jodak of the AWI: "So that the claims have been resolved if at some point it turns out that there really are rich resource deposits in the northern Arctic."

Shared heritage?

Thus, the clock is ticking for Russia, Denmark and Canada, all of which view themselves as having the ultimate claim to the Arctic Sea.

"The Arctic doesn't belong to any state alone," said Moscow sea expert Anatoly Kolodkin of the UN's International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea.

The Arctic Sea was part of "man's common heritage," he said, adding that the issue was, nevertheless, about who had the rights to explore and develop the resources there.