Context: The collapse of Canada’s Milne ice shelf — the country’s last one — in a corner of the country’s Ellesmere Island, has increased fears of the Arctic region being under severe stress due to global warming.

About Milne ice shelf

• Ice shelfs are large floating pieces of ice that form when a glacier or ice sheet flows into the sea surface.
• Milne ice shelf is in Ellesmere Island, Canada and recently it was broken.
• The Milne ice shelf lost more than 40 % of its ice.
• This has increased concerns over the rapid melting of ice and the breaking of old ice shelfs due to global warming.
• This also meant the last known Epishelf Lake, a water body dammed by the ice shelf and floating on the ocean surface on the Milne ice shelf, no longer exists.

Note: Ellesmere Island has two other prominent ice shelves — Murray and Simmons.

Importance of Arctic region

• The territories in the Arctic Circle regions of Russia, Norway, Sweden and Finland have large minerals, particularly, the iron ore. Mineral exploration and exploitation is expected to pick up as Arctic shipping develops further in the future.
• Apart from the minerals, the Arctic regions will emerge as a new source of fishing. The releases of new lands as a result of melting of ice will lead to development of the agriculture in the region.
• Polar tourism is picking up too.
• The opening of the new sea routes and the scramble for resources makes for new geopolitics.
• The Arctic Council, an inter-governmental forum of eight countries — Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the US — set up in the 1996 to deal with Arctic issues has been transformed into an active organisation where the future of the Arctic might be decided.