Sharp Increase in Children's Mental Health Problems. The amount of benefits paid by Kela for children's mental problems has increased alarmingly since the start of the millennium. According to Yle sources, last year Kela [social security benefits provider for residents of Finland] paid disability benefits to some 15,500 under-16-year-olds because of mental and behavioral disturbances. At the turn of the millennium, the figure stood at 11,000. YLE

Opening of Icelandic Consulate Marks Increasing Ties Between Arctic Neighbors. Iceland has opened a Consulate General's office in Nuuk, Greenland. Aleqa Hammond, Greenland's premier, and Iceland's foreign minister, Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson celebrated the opening last week along with other members of governments of both countries. Hammond and Sveinsson also signed an Iceland-Greenland Joint Declaration paving the way for closer co-operation between Iceland and Greenland in a variety of areas. Arctic Journal

Navy Sees Opportunity, Risk in Thawing Arctic. The changing shape of the Arctic has caused the U.S. Navy to step up efforts to strengthen its strategic posture in the region and prepare an increasingly Arctic-capable fleet, service officials said. The service is finalizing an updated Arctic Road Map aimed at paving the way toward creating the investments, doctrine and technologies needed to ensure the Navy can operate in the rapidly changing Arctic environment. Military.com

The Winding Roads to Replacing the Kyoto Protocol by 2015. In just two years, the world could have a major climate treaty do-over. Descending on Paris in December 2015, world leaders are expected to do what they failed to in Copenhagen, Denmark, back in 2009: sign an agreement that will keep global temperatures from rising beyond a dangerous 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels. E&E News

Missing Data From Arctic One Reason for 'Pause' in Global Temperature Rise -- Study. The keepers of such long-term data sets, usually government institutions, know they have to account for numerous variations to keep a consistent measurement of temperatures through time. Without that, it is impossible to know how our world is changing. A new study finds that some of those missing measurements, particularly in the Arctic, which has recently warmed faster than any other part of the world, may have affected the trajectory of global temperatures in a key temperature data series. "Our best measurements only cover about five-sixths of the globe," said Kevin Cowtan, a computational scientist at the University of York. E&E News

Study Finds Condition of Polar Bears in Arctic's Chukchi Sea Stable Despite Sea Ice Loss. A recent study found that the condition of polar bears in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea has remained stable despite sea ice loss, while the condition of another population in the Beaufort Sea has declined. The researchers studied the overall health and reproductive rates of polar bears in the Chukchi Sea, located between Alaska and Russia, and the adjacent southern Beaufort Sea. They compared the Chukchi Sea population from 2008 to 2011 with data from the same population from decades earlier. Despite experiencing a 44-day increase in the number of reduced ice days over productive continental shelf waters during that elapsed time, the condition and reproduction rates of the Chukchi Sea polar bears remained stable. National Geographic

The Future of Arctic Shipping: A New Silk Road for China? Recently, the Arctic Institute published a report on Arctic shipping and China. Here is a link to the report.