The number of navigable days between East Asia and Europe through the Arctic via the Northeast Passage has grown steadily in recent decades, evidence of the receding ice in the region.
A team led by Professor Qinghua Yang of China’s Sun Yat-sen University, Dr Yiguo Wang of Norway’s Nansen Center for Environment and Remote Sensing, and Dr Jinlun Zhang of the University of Washington examined recently the daily accessibility of the Northeast Passage –to the north of Russia– between 1979 and 2020 for different types of merchant ships.
In the study, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (1),Sea ice data (both thickness and concentration) were used to simulate Arctic shipping lanes.
‘navigation windows’
The team found that, despite the large interannual and interdecadal variability of the Navigable Window (VN) in the Northeast Passage, there was a detectable general trend. Specifically, the number of navigable days has grown steadily, reaching 89 +/- 16 days for open water vessels (OW) and 163 +/- 19 days for polar class 6 (PC6) vessels in the 2010s. Furthermore, since 2005 more navigation windows consecutive for both OW and PC6 vessels due to faster sea ice retreat.
A scientific topic that deserves to be investigated in the future is the impact that the increase in maritime activities in the Arctic would have on the environment and climate.
Since the 1980s, according to the simulation, the number of Arctic routes has continued to increase, with optimum navigability found in years of record sea ice extent (for example, 2012 and 2020). On the other hand, summer seaworthiness in the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea varied drastically due to changes in sea ice conditions.
It should be noted that government policies, geopolitics and international situations are important considerations in determining the choice of routes, in addition to factors such as ice conditions, weather and ocean conditions. On the other hand, a scientific issue that deserves to be investigated in the future is the impact that the increase in maritime activities in the Arctic would have on the environment and climate, the authors point out.
References
- (1) Toward quantification of the increasing accessibility of the Northeast Arctic Passage over the past four decades. Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.