Global warming will vest northern countries like Canada and Scandinavia with great economic powers, says a senior academic.

Rising temperatures will unlock previously frozen natural resources like gas, oil and water just as the rest of the world is facing acute shortages.

Laurence Smith, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) professor of geography, claims that sparsely populated parts of world like northern US, Greenland and Russia will become 'migration magnets', reports the Daily Mail.

'In many ways, the New North is well positioned for the coming century even as its unique ecosystem is threatened by the linked forces of hydrocarbon development and amplified climate change,' writes Smith in a new book.

His book 'The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future' is slated for publication Sep 23.

The geographer also predicts that by 2050 these northern rim countries, which he nicknames NORCs, will become magnets for migration.

He predicts that oil production in Canada will be the second biggest in the world, behind Saudi Arabia, while migration will make its population soar by 30 percent.

And he says that new shipping lanes will open up in the Arctic ice allowing trade ships to pass directly from the Atlantic to the Far East for the first time.

NORCs will be one of the few places in the world where crop production will increase while these countries will control vast reserves of fresh water which will be sold to other regions.

Smith predicts that China will replace the US as the country with the strongest economy by 2050. The US will drop to second place, followed by India.

Smith concludes that the best-case scenario will be an average 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit rise in temperature by the century end. The worst-case scenario would be double that amount.

Wildlife will suffer the greatest rate of extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, he writes.