Federal Water Bill Requires a Fresh Look at an Arctic Port for Alaska. A small clause in the nation's most recent water resources and funding bill could breathe new life into plans for a large vessel port in Western Alaska. The Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama shortly before the holidays, directs U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials to add national security interests to the list of reasons why the country should possibly add to the limited maritime infrastructure around Nome. Alaska Dispatch News

 

The Detective of Northern Oddities. When they captured her off Cohen Island in the summer of 2007, she weighed 58 pounds and was the size of a collie. The growth rings in a tooth they pulled revealed her age-eight years, a mature female sea otter. They anesthetized her and placed tags on her flippers. They assigned her a number: LCI013, or 13 for short. They installed a transmitter in her belly and gave her a VHF radio frequency: 165.155 megahertz. Then they released her. The otter was now, in ­effect, her own small-wattage Alaskan ­radio station. If you had the right kind of ­antenna and a receiver, you could launch a skiff into Kachemak Bay, lift the antenna, and hunt the air for the music of her existence: an ­occasional ping in high C that was both solitary and reassuring amid the static of the wide world. Outside

 

'Huge, Historic' International Pact Governs Shipping in Increasingly Ice-Free Arctic. Ask Lawson Brigham about the Polar Code and he'll emphatically make it clear that it's more than just a set of rules and regulations that went into effect on Jan. 1st, requiring bigger freight and passenger ships to be equipped to operate safely in circumpolar regions, with crews adequately trained to pilot the vessels. "This is a huge and historic change for both polar regions," Brigham said. "The Polar Code, in summary, is a historic governance regime for both polar seas, Arctic and Antarctic." KUAC

 

Slowing Arctic Warming Called the Only Hope for Polar Bears in the Long Term. Just days before the inauguration of a new president who has dismissed climate change as a hoax, the Obama administration has released a broad conservation and recovery plan aimed at helping an icon of Arctic warming - the polar bear.  The plan , written in accordance with the Endangered Species Act and aimed at guiding policies within the United States, identifies climate warming as the single and overwhelming threat to polar bears. Prompt and aggressive reduction of the global greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the north's rapid warming and dramatically changing the ice-dependent animals' habitat is "the single most important action for conservation and recovery of polar bears," the plan says. Alaska Dispatch News

 

Thawing Arctic is Turning Oceans into Graveyards.  Something is happening to the floating sea ice of the Arctic, other than the well-documented retreat in its surface coverage each summer. Scientists are finding that Arctic sea ice is getting younger and thinner, which is set to continue in March, when US research reveals the winter maximum, and September, when it reveals the summer minimum, making it more vulnerable to a catastrophic and unprecedented break-up. Nasa researchers have found that the thicker multi-year ice, which has survived several summer melt seasons, is being rapidly replaced by thinner, more ephemeral one-year ice formed over a single winter. This change makes the polar region increasingly vulnerable to storms that could smash their way through the final remnants of thinner, one-year sea ice, making a completely ice-free summer in the Arctic increasingly likely.  The Guardian