The Odyssey orbiter first reported in 2001 that the region was rich in water ice, mostly in the form of permafrost.

CNN: Lander grabs Mars water, will see if it's life-supporting

The oldest surviving universities in the world today are in the region, such as Al-Azhar in Cairo, and polymaths from Edward Said to the inventor of ice-cream cones can be traced there.

FORBES: The Arab World Needs (Entrepreneurial) Heroes

Since the 1950s, submarines have measured the thickness of Arctic ice in specific places but never for the entire region.

CNN: Nature - Satellite sees through Arctic ice for signs of climate change

The Arctic's importance has gained extra strategic and economic significance as melting ice in the polar region strengthens the feasibility of nations to use the Northern Sea Route (NSR) across the top of Russia and the Northwest Passage through Canada's Arctic archipelago.

CNN: China eyes Arctic options in energy, transport

And the shrinking of the region's sea ice -- which hit record lows in 2012 -- has created new opportunities for energy exploration in the region.

CNN: Shell: Grounded drilling rig sound and fit to be towed

Modernity, they proudly and not uncontroversially say, has arrived in this backward region in the form of an engineering miracle that has laid tracks on land gripped year-round by ice, a railway line at higher altitude than any other in the world.

ECONOMIST: Tibet is linked to the rest of China

And in Greenland, scientists suspect the melt waters that drain through holes, or moulins, in the ice cap to the bedrock may have contributed to the speed-up of glaciers in that region, too.

BBC: Under-ice flood speeds up glacier