気候変動の脅威が現実のものとなるにつれ、多くの科学者が北極海に今後の環境現象を予見しています。温暖化の影響は溶け始めた多年氷に最も顕著に現れており、氷に依存する微生物はその存在を脅かされ、このままでは将来、北極の生態系のすべてが破壊されると考えられています。
本書は、人、環境、資源開発、自然保護、政治に焦点を当て、北極圏の変化が地球全体とそこに住むすべての人々に与え得る影響や予測について、簡潔な概要を提供します。この地域の重要性が時代とともに増してきたこと、冷戦時代における北極圏の役割、先住民のコミュニティとその歴史、北極圏の統治に関する過去と未来など、欠かすことのできないトピックに光を当て、解説しています。現在の地球にとって最も重要な地域の一つである北極圏についての情報を得たい読者必読の入門書です。
   

• Condenses interdisciplinary topics and broad themes about the Arctic to provide a concise introduction to the region
• Provides insights into issues indigenous peoples face today
• Investigates the affects of climate change on the world's northernmost areas
• Interlocks issues of peoples, environment, resource development, and politics to shed light on this important region

     
Conversations defining the Arctic region often provoke debate and controversy -- for scientists, this lies in the imprecise and imaginary line known as the Arctic Circle; for countries like Canada, Russia, the United States, and Denmark, such discussions are based in competition for land and resources; for indigenous communities, those discussions are also rooted in issues of rights. These shifting lines are only made murkier by the threat of global climate change. In the Arctic Ocean, the consequences of Earth's warming trend are most immediately observable in the multi-year and perennial ice that has begun to melt, which threatens ice-dependent microorganisms and, eventually, will disrupt all of Arctic life and raise sea levels globally. 
  
In The Arctic: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Klaus Dodds and Mark Nuttall offer concise answers to the myriad questions that arise when looking at the circumpolar North. They focus on its peoples, politics, environment, resource development, and conservation to provide critical information about how changes there can, and will, affect our entire globe and all of its inhabitants. Dodds and Nuttall explore how the Arctic's importance has grown over time, the region's role during the Cold War, indigenous communities and their history, and the past and future of the Arctic's governance, among other crucial topics.