Blaze Engulfs Russian Nuke Sub; No radiation leak. A massive fire engulfed a Russian nuclear submarine at an Arctic shipyard Thursday, but there has been no radiation leak, or injuries, officials said. The fire at the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine occurred while it was in dock for repairs at the Roslyakovo shipyard in the Murmansk region, said Irina Gretskaya, a spokeswoman for the Emergencies Ministry's branch in the area. Gretskaya said the fire engulfed wooden scaffolding at the yard. "No one has been hurt and there has been no radiation leak," she said. CBS News 

Icebreaker Collects Opportunistic Data Underway. While on passage from the Canadian west coast to the Arctic, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) scientists from the Institute of Ocean Sciences (IOS) in Sidney, British Columbia were able to collect dozens of high-quality 400m CTD profiles across the Pacific Ocean without stopping or slowing the icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Hydro International 

More European Countries Join Ban on Harp Seal Products: Inuit organization looks into impact on hunting industry. The Russian Federation, Belarus and Kazakhstan joined with the European Union (EU) by banning the import of all harp seal products effective last summer, and now the Nunavut government and Inuit are examining how the ban might affect the territory in the  coming year. Ron Brown, manager of Fisheries and Sealing for the Nunavut government, said it is difficult to determine what impact the ban will have on Nunavut, adding his department is still gathering information about it. Northern News Service 

Russian Tanker Making 250 Plus Miles a Day en Route to Icebound Alaska City. A Russian tanker is headed toward Alaska  on a mission to deliver fuel to Nome. Mark Smith, CEO of Vitus Marine, said Wednesday that the tanker is making more than 250 miles a day, and was reported to be 545 miles south-southwest of Attu in the Aleutian Islands. The tanker left Russia loaded with more than a million gallons of diesel fuel in South Korea. The plan is to have it pick up 400,000 gallons of gasoline in Dutch Harbor and then head to Nome. The Coast Guard cutter Healy is on hand to break ice. Fairbanks Daily News Miner 

"Canada has a good working relationship with Russia with respect to the Arctic." "There is no likelihood of Arctic states going to war," the Russian foreign ministry's representative in Siberia  said smiling as he quoted the Canadian Prime Minister, as reported in a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. Although Stephen Harper never expected that his conversation with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen would be made public, the analysis was entirely correct. Here in Novosibirsk (pop. 1.5 million), people are more interested in trade and investment opportunities than geopolitical conspiracies. The freshly snow-cleared streets are crowded with new Japanese cars; the shop windows filled with the latest European fashions. Most of the students at my lectures are fluent in English; some already have jobs lined up with the Moscow branches of multinational law and management consulting firms. The Toronto Star 

More Views on Climate Risk and Arctic Methane (Opinion) In trying to clarify what's known, unknown, and learnable about the possible contribution to global warming from vast methane deposits beneath Arctic seas, I reached out to a host of scientists working on this question. I also received a lot of reader input, as you can see from the comment threads in the string of posts on this important issue. New York Times Blog

No Arctic legislation was formally considered yesterday.

Alaska Marine Science Symposium, January 16-20, 2012. The symposium was first held in 2002 to connect scientists in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and beyond in an effort to collaborate and communicate on research

activities in the marine regions off Alaska. There will be plenary and poster sessions featuring a broad spectrum of ocean science on issues of climate, oceanography, lower trophic levels, the benthos, fish and invertebrates, seabirds, marine mammals, local and traditional knowledge, and socioeconomic research. There will also be speakers, workshops and special sessions.

Workshop: Responding to Arctic Environmental Change: Translating Our Growing Understanding into a Research Agenda for Action Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2012.   Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. Co-sponsored by International Study of Arctic Change (ISAC) and the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University. Endorsed by the International Arctic Science Committee, this workshop is the first in a planned series of meetings that aim to collectively shape and coordinate initiatives for research that directly addresses the needs of stakeholders who are affected by change or who are addressing arctic environmental change. The long-term objective is to enable local people, the arctic nations and the wider global community, including the scientific community, to better respond to a changing Arctic. This workshop is a pre-IPY 2012 Conference event. It is intended to develop a science plan that will feed into and further evolve at IPY 2012 Conference "From Knowledge to Action". For more information and to register for the workshop go here.