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Shell's Alaska Drilling Season Falls Short. Shell completed its drilling season off the Arctic coast of Alaska Wednesday, falling short of its original goal of drilling as many as six exploration wells. The company said it drilled the top portions of two wells, the Burger-A well in the Chukchi Sea and the Sivulliq well in the Beaufort Sea, without attempting to penetrate deeper reservoirs that could hold oil. The company said that the work would "go a long way in positioning Shell for another successful drilling program in 2013." Washington Post

A Quest to Document Earth's Disappearing Glaciers. For James Balog, it all began with a 2005 National Geographic assignment to photograph the world's rapidly retreating glaciers. That story brought home to him the severity of glacial retreat worldwide and instilled in him a desire to "preserve the visual memory" of a world of ice fading from view. The result was the Extreme Ice Survey, a project launched in 2007 that has involved the deployment of time-lapse cameras on four continents to record, every half hour during daylight, the shrinking of the world's glaciers. The ongoing survey, done in collaboration with leading glaciologists, led to Balog's recently published book, Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers, from which the photographs in the e360 gallery were selected. Balog's all-consuming pursuit is also the subject of a documentary film, Chasing Ice, which is being premiered next week. Yale Environment 360

For Shell, Wait 'Til Next Year in the Arctic: Oil Giant Suspends Drilling Off Alaska until Spring Thaw, After Missing Out on Initial Well Targets. In the frigid seas that surrounded this drilling ship, parked by Royal Dutch Shell between Alaska and the North Pole, there are no signs of humanity, just an endless horizon of empty gray water. The helicopter pilot kept the engine running when he landed on the drill ship's helipad, for fear it wouldn't start again in the harsh cold. Visitors come clad in $3,000 survival suits to give them a fighting chance should their aircraft crash into the sea below. "Alaska is defined by its remoteness," said Pete Slaiby, vice president of Shell's Alaska operations. "What we do here has to be different than what we would do in places like the Gulf of Mexico." Wall Street Journal

Northwest Territories Politicians Question Arctic Highway Spending. Politician Jane Groenewegen, the Member of the Legislative Assembly for the Northwest Territories riding of Hay River South, says the Government of Canada's Northwest Territories needs to take a sober second look at the proposed highway to the community of Tuktoyaktuk. The Northwest Territories Finance Minister is asking for $2 million dollars more to study the proposed 140 kilometer gravel highway. Groenewegen said supporters of the project are so passionate about it, "it's practically sacrilege" to question whether it is a good idea. But she says that question needs to be asked. She says federal money alone isn't enough to justify spending on the mega project. Alaska Dispatch

The EU As a Prospective Permanent Observer to the Arctic Council: Footholds, Virtues, Concerns and Obstacles. First of all, the EU has overall only weak legal links to the Arctic region and is thus mostly described as an external Arctic actor. However, against the background of the multiple EU-Arctic links as outlined above, some argue that the EU should be seen distinct from its member states because many policy areas that are also of relevance to the Arctic are already regulated at the Commission level and not by member states alone. There are potential concerns among the Arctic Council member states that there would be a stronger use of the rule that the EU's member states, in this case Sweden, Finland and Denmark, have to coordinate their standpoints before meeting in international fora and are required to uphold existing EU positions. The Arctic Institute

Russia Backs Its Claims for Arctic Shelf with Evidence. A Russian expedition has finished investigations which were meant to prove that the Arctic Shelf in the Arctic Ocean is a continuation of the Eurasian continent, and, thus, should belong to Russia. The expedition lasted 3 months and gathered about 22,000 samples of soil from the Arctic Ocean's bottom. These samples are still to be examined, but drilling of the underwater Mendeleev mountain range, which the expedition made, already provided evidence that this range is a prolongation of the Eurasian continent. Voice of Russia

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