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Risk and reward As climate change redraws the map of the world’s North Polar Region, opportunities and challenges abound in equal measure. Can Arctic resources be developed without endangering the ecosystem and human lives? That’s the trillion-dollar question. Here’s a quick overview of what’s at stake By Alec Bruce and Dawn Chafe An estimated 15,000-30,000 icebergs are calved annually from Greenland glaciers. Beautiful to behold, icebergs are a serious threat to offshore drill platforms and shipping. Sub-zero temperatures, dangerous wind storms, year-round sea ice and extreme isolation make the Arctic a forbidding and treacherous operational environment. The Arctic subsea is thought to hold an estimated 160 billion barrels of oil and 30% of the world’s undiscovered natural gas reserves. Most of these fossil-fuel resources are considered commercially accessible, as they are believed to rest relatively close (within 500 meters) to the surface of the ocean floor. 66 Atlantic Business Magazine | September/October 2016 ARCTIC: ENVIRONMENT Since 1975, sea ice has thinned on an annualized average of 65%: bad news for the northern ecosystem (and, some say, global climate conditions); great news for transportation. Experts predict ice breakers could make the Arctic accessible to year-round shipping by 2050. There are approximately 16,000 polar bears in Canada’s Far North and sea ice is integral to their survival. Polar bears hunt by stalking seals across ice and waiting for seals to emerge from breathing holes in the ice. Living on thin ice limits their ability to hunt. While the animals are not yet considered endangered in this country, the Government of Canada has increased monitoring in recent years. Other Arctic species struggling to adapt to thinning ice and global warming include: caribou, narwhal, bowhead whale, beluga and walrus. The deepest offshore oil well to date was drilled by the Deepwater Horizon in 2009, in the Tiber Oil Field southeast of Texas (10,684 m). The rig exploded in 2010, triggering the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history and endangering thousands of species. With an average depth of 1,038 m, the Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest ocean in the world. It contains only 1.3% of total global ocean volume. atlanticbusinessmagazine.com | Atlantic Business Magazine 67