Pentagon Reversal on Missile Defense Reverts to Bush Policy, GOP Notes. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday announced plans to add 14 interceptors in Alaska as a hedge against the North Korean missile threats, prompting criticism from key congressional Republicans that the Obama administration has abruptly changed course years after scaling back the long-range missile defense system. The decision comes four years after the Obama administration's cost-saving decision to cut the West Coast interceptors from the 44 originally planned to just 30 under the George W. Bush administration in Alaska and California. But moves in North Korea, particularly a third nuclear test last month, forced the Pentagon to rethink that decision. Congressional Quarterly

Manitoba Research Center Tackles Tough Questions on Vanishing Arctic Sea Ice. As seen from space, the Arctic ice cap looks and acts like a giant amoeba splayed across the top of the world. It heaves and twists, reaches outward, then shrinks back. "It's constantly in motion," says David Barber, while a time-lapse sequence of polar satellite images plays across his computer screen. The more scientists study the sea ice that floats atop the Arctic Ocean, the more it resembles something that lives and breathes, a dynamic membrane that hosts microbial communities, fosters chemical reactions and connects air with water in surprising ways. The Globe and Mail

Myth of Fresh Cold War in Arctic Won't Die. [Opinion] My first post on Eye on the Arctic, writing back in May 2010, addressed the concern that was pervasive at the time that the Arctic was heading for conflict over oil and shipping routes. The concern was fueled by a series of events-exhibit A, the Russia flag planting at the North Pole; exhibit B, Canada PM Harper calling for Canadians to "use it or lose it," "it" being the Arctic-that occurred in the Summer of 2007. Alaska Dispatch

China to Ship up to 15% of Trade Through the Arctic. A Chinese shipping company is planning the state's first commercial voyage through the Northern Sea Route to the United States and Europe in 2013. By 2020, China could transfer up to 15% of the country's international trade through the Arctic. With thawing sea ice, countries are rushing to the Arctic hungry for its oil, gas and mineral deposits. China is mostly interested in using the Northern Sea Route for a more direct shipping link between east and west. RT.com 

Alaska Science Forum: Permafrost Scientists Snowmachining from Alaska to Atlantic. Kenji Yoshikawa will soon sleep on a brilliant, blue-white landscape that has never felt the imprint of his boots. Beginning on the spring equinox, the permafrost scientist and a partner will attempt to drive snowmachines from Prudhoe Bay to Canada's Baffin Island. While traveling a distance equal to Seattle to Tokyo to Seattle over land and sea ice, Yoshikawa will camp outside villages in an Arctic Oven tent. Along the way, stopping at village schools in Canada's far north, he will drill holes in the ground and snake in strings of thermometers to record permafrost temperatures. The Arctic Sounder

No formal legislative action was taken on Arctic legislation Friday.

Deadly Dance: Arctic Warming and Global Climate Change, March 26-27, 2013 (Tufts University, Medford, MA) The Warming Arctic, the Edward R. Murrow Center and the Center of International Environment and Resource Policy will convene a group of experts, policy makers, business and media to examine the growing body of evidence on the climate impact of the Arctic - and try to share some big approaches to it.