The issue of Arctic sovereignty is “heating up” as global warming allows for more access to the North.

In Harper’s 2006 campaign, he promised “three heavy troop-carrying icebreakers, remote sensing to locate foreign vessels, an army training centre up north, a deepwater port at Iqaluit, more air patrols plus unmanned drone aircraft, and expansion of the aboriginal militia known as the Arctic Rangers.” However, his government has now backed away from this earlier plan, and some would like an explanation.

The Guardian

Scientists claim to have discovered evidence for large releases of methane into the atmosphere from frozen seabed stores off the northern coast of Siberia.

The Globe and Mail

The Arctic has finished its ice melt for the year, shrinking to its second-lowest size in a generation, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The Globe and Mail

Massive pieces of Canada’s northern ice shelf broke away in early August, a team of researchers reported yesterday. The 50-square-kilometre Markham shelf, located on the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, is now floating free in the Arctic ocean along with a larger portion of the Serson shelf.

Meanwhile, remnants of the Ward Hunt ice shelf, which attracted international publicity when it collapsed in July, continue to float away from the Ellesmere shore.

The Globe and Mail

Arctic Ocean sea ice has melted to the second lowest minimum since satellite observations began, according to scientists at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Sea ice melt recorded on Monday exceeded the low recorded in 2005, which had held second place.

With several weeks left in the melting season, ice in summer 2008 has a chance to go below last year’s record low, the scientists at the University of Colorado said.

Discovery News

Locked away in the frozen soils of the Arctic tundra, there lies a ticking time bomb.

Nothing more than accumulated leaves, roots and other plant matter, the unassuming detritus is rich in carbon, giving it the power to dramatically enhance the effects of global warming should it ever get into the atmosphere. But for now it mostly lies dormant, in cold storage in the permafrosts of Siberia, Alaska, and Canada.

The Globe and Mail

The cold climes of the Arctic are fast becoming an international hot spot. Faced with melting ice floes opening up navigable waterways, tantalized by the dream of untold resource riches in the northern seabed and spurred on by a gaggle of commentators calling on countries to assert their sovereign rights in the name of their “national interests,” governments of the circumpolar region are engaging in a competitive scurry to plant flags, bolster their military presence and engage in disputatious legal wrangles.

National Geographic News

Grazing musk-oxen and caribou may help protect the fragile Arctic ecosystem from the effects of global warming, according to a new study.

Large grazers could help the region by feasting on woody shrubs and plants that would otherwise take over as temperatures rise and change the way the Arctic looks and functions.

If shrubs dominated, they would darken Arctic lands and absorb more heat from the sun, enhancing warming due to greenhouse gases.

CBC News

It will be interesting to see whether the news that — putting aside issues of inaccessibility, geopolitical disputes and environmental risk — the Arctic probably has 90 billion barrels worth of oil will cool the rhetoric of those yearning for a modern-day version of the Apollo project .

The Globe and Mail

Scientists say the break, the largest on record since 2005, is the latest indication that climate change is forcing the drastic reshaping of the Arctic coastline, where 9,000 square kilometres of ice have been whittled down to less than 1,000 over the past century, and are only showing signs of decreasing further.