Commemorating Bering Day, Murkowski Gives Arctic Address. Sen.
Murkowski's prepared remarks at the 5th Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Naval and Maritime Operations: 

"Good morning and thank you for the invitation to be with you for this symposium. On a warm and sticky day it is always a good thing to start off by thinking cool thoughts - Arctic ice. But as the title for this event notes, there is less of it these days. "According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, since 2000 the minimum sea ice extent in the Arctic polar cap has been cut in half and reached a record low last year. Perhaps just as importantly, the Norwegian Polar Institute - Norway's national institution for polar research - reports that the amount of multi-year ice has also been cut in half, and that multi-year ice is roughly the same thickness as first-year ice - right around two meters. The NPI suggests that when multi-year ice thickness equals first-year ice thickness, an ice-free summer is on the horizon." Official Senator Murkowski Website  

Why Predicting Sea Ice Cover Is So Difficult: It's hard to pinpoint when the Arctic will be sea ice free in the summer. "Predicting Mother Nature is never an exact science. Weather forecasters can get it wrong, leaving people dressed for a rainy day high and dry. And the further out researchers try to predict things like air temperature or sea ice cover, the more uncertainty there is. But knowing 

how Earth's climate will react to natural and human-induced changes is important for governments and industry." National Geographic 

Researchers project ice-free Arctic by 2058. "A combined team of researchers from the U.S. and China has projected, using a climate simulation tool, that the Arctic will become September ice-free sometime during the years 2054 to 2058. The group has published a paper describing their methods and findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ice-free in this context refers to a time period during any given year-generally arriving in September after withstanding the heat of summer. Not long after scientists began to recognize that the planet has been heating up, many began to realize that a warmer planet would mean warmer temperatures in the Arctic-enough warming and the Arctic would eventually become ice-free during part of the year." Phys.org 

Rasmuson Foundation awards $5 million to ANSEP. "Rasmuson Foundation Board of Directors announced on July 15 that the Alaska Native Science & Engineering Program (ANSEP) will receive a $5 million award as part of the Foundation's Tier 2 grant program. This $5 million grant makes up the largest single grant ANSEP has ever received. In addition, UAA has committed to providing increasing levels of support so that after five years the $1 million in annual funding from the Rasmuson Foundation will come from the University. The funds will support the ANSEP Institutionalization and Sustainability effort." ANSEP 

Arctic Terrain Poses Severe Challenge to Canadian Plans. "Logistics challenges are limiting Canada's ambitious Arctic military plans for building installations and resupplying forces in its vast, harsh northern region. Since 2006, the Canadian government has emphasized that it intends to greatly boost its military presence in the Arctic because the oil, gas and mineral resources there are critical to economic growth. 'Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic - we either use it or lose it,' Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in July 2007." Defense News 

Canada readies Arctic claim: Bid for huge offshore area now in critical phase. "Canada's bid to add an offshore area the size of the Prairies to its sovereign territory has reached a critical new phase, Postmedia News has learned. A 20-year federal scientific mission aimed at gathering and analyzing undersea geological data along Canada's Atlantic and Arctic continental shelves has essentially come to an end, giving way to the legal and diplomatic components of the high-priority project ahead of a December deadline to submit the country's claims to the UN. Led for years by Halifax-based Natural Resources Canada geoscientist Jacob Verhoef, the offshore mapping effort has now been wound up and prime responsibility for completing the submission handed to international law experts with the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development." Ottawa Citizen 

New defence minister must make tough decisions. "As one of Canada's longest serving defence ministers, Peter MacKay had been at the wheel for just over six years. He successfully navigated defence through some of the most difficult and challenging waters in recent memory, such as ending the Afghanistan mission. And he has not only been a steadfast supporter of the troops, but an effective spokesman on their behalf. Just as important, he was very much out front on the promise of fleet renewal for the army, navy and air force as spelled out in the Harper government's 2008 Canada First Defence Strategy." CBC News 

Exploring China's Arctic icebreaker. "The recent decision of the Arctic Council to admit China and several other Asian states to observer status there represents an epochal decision for both Arctic and Asian affairs. China, Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore, and Italy all won observer status - the inclusion of so many observers from Asia highlighting the importance of these markets. This decision also means that Asian voices will be heard for the first time in decisions regulating Arctic use and commercial exploitation as that ocean becomes more accessible due to climate change. Indeed, a Chinese shipping company is planning China's first commercial voyage through the Arctic later in 2013." Asia Times 

New study explains surprising acceleration of Greenland's inland ice. "Surface meltwater draining through cracks in an ice sheet can warm the sheet from the inside, softening the ice and letting it flow faster, according to a new study by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder. During the last decade, researchers have captured compelling evidence of accelerating ice flow at terminal regions, or 'snouts,' of Greenland glaciers as they flow into the ocean along the western coast. The new CIRES research now shows that the interior regions also are flowing much faster than they were in the winter of 2000-01, and the paper proposes a reason for the speedup." Phys.org