Nunavut's Rich-Poor Gap Continues to Grow, Stats Reveal. Nunavut's affluent wage-earners continue to get richer, while the territory's poorest are earning less. That's according to economic indicator statistics included with Nunavut's Finance Minister Keith Peterson's annual territorial budget, released Feb. 25 at Nunavut's Legislative Assembly. Nunatsiaq Online

 

Appeals Court Upholds Designation of Polar Bear Habitat in US Arctic. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service followed the law when it designated more than 187,000 square miles - an area larger than California - as critical habitat for threatened polar bears in Alaska marine waters and its northern coast, an appeals court ruled Monday. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeal reversed a 2013 lower court decision that the designation was too extensive and not specific. Alaska Dispatch News

 

Inuit Women Continue to Play Catch-up With Aboriginal Peers. Canadian Inuit women continue to play catch-up with other Aboriginal women in Canada. That's among the many conclusions from a recently-released chapter on First Nations, Métis and Inuit Women contained in a Statistics Canada study on women in Canada. Nunatsiaq Online

 

Following Alaska's Vanishing Ice. I slid onto the ice with the trepidation of a newly walking toddler, probing with my ski pole, lining my kids behind me like ducklings. You'd laugh if you were watching. But bear with me. It's hard to believe you really can walk on the sea, even when you're doing it. It was the middle of March, nearly a year ago. My family of four had flown into Nome around the time a lot of people fly to Nome. Iditarod fans filled the streets. But I was a hundred yards offshore of downtown. I didn't fall in. Beneath my skis, the ocean was crystallized. Crystal touched crystal touched crystal, a sparkling line that reached to Unalakleet, where the first of the mushers had just reached Norton Sound. Alaska Dispatch News

 

Autonomous Kayak Helps Researchers Capture Light Measurements in Winter Arctic. Circadian rhythms are the daily 24-hour cycles that tell our bodies when to eat, sleep and regulate a host of other physical processes. They can be affected by environmental cues like light and temperature. Marine organisms are susceptible to light, too. They use it to find food, avoid predators, even to hide themselves in plain sight. Phys.org

 

Sullivan: Alaska Strategically Important to US. U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said Monday that Alaska is an area of strategic importance to the country, given its foothold in the Arctic and production of oil, seafood and other resources. In an address to state lawmakers, he spoke about the state's role in improving its own fiscal standing and that of the United States. Juneau Empire

 

State Commission for Arctic Development Presidium to Meet in Murmansk. The State Commission for Arctic Development Presidium will hold its meeting in Murmansk on March 9. The meeting will be chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, the commission's press service reported. The main items on the meeting's agenda include discussing amendments to the state program Socioeconomic Development of the Russian Arctic until 2020 and the creation of an integrated transport infrastructure with an adequate fleet of vehicles in the Russian Arctic, as well as summing up the results of delivering goods to the country's northern territories in 2015. The Arctic

 

Portable Laboratory Will Gather Critical Arctic Climate Data. To build accurate climate models, scientists require atmospheric data from all corners of the globe-from tropical oceans to the frigid Arctic. Engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are leaders in building mobile laboratories designed to gather relevant data from remote regions. Their latest creation is a revamped Aerosol Observing System (AOS) commissioned by DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, which contains over a dozen instruments for collecting data on aerosols, tiny particulates in the atmosphere that can have a big impact on climate. These instruments are mounted inside a modified shipping container designed to withstand the harshest weather conditions on Earth, from tropical hurricanes to Arctic blizzards. Phys.org