Trans-Arctic shipping routes expanding faster than the model projections |
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Institution: | 1. Precision Forestry Key Laboratory of Beijing, Beijing Forestry University, 100083 Beijing, China;2. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park 20742, USA;3. Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY 12222, USA;4. School of Geospatial Engineering and Science, Sun Yan-Sen University, 519082 Zhuhai, China;5. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), 519082 Zhuhai, China |
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Abstract: | Rapid declines in Arctic sea ice coverage over the past four decades have increased the commercial feasibility of trans-Arctic routes. However, the historical changes in navigability of trans-Arctic routes remain unclear, and projections by global circulation models (GCMs) contain large uncertainties since they cannot simulate long-term Arctic sea ice changes. In this study, we determined the changes in trans-Arctic routes from 1979 to 2019 by combining two harmonized high-quality daily sea ice products. We found that the trans-Arctic routes are becoming navigable much faster than projected by the GCMs. The navigation season for open water (OW) vessels along the Northeast Passage (NEP) has lengthened from occasionally navigable in the 1980 s to 92 ± 15 days in the 2010 s. In contrast, previous GCM projections have suggested that navigability would not be achieved until the mid-21st century. The 90-day safety shipping area for OW vessels expanded by 35% during 1979–2018, reaching 8.28 million km2 in 2018, indicating an increasing rate of 0.08 ± 0.01 million km2 per year. The shortest trans-Arctic routes were also shifted further north than the model projections. Regular ships have been able to safely travel north along the islands in the NEP and transit through the M’Clure Strait in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago during the 2010 s, while previous studies have projected that this would not be feasible until the mid-21st century. We also found that the improved navigability of trans-Arctic routes enables commercial ships to transport approximately 33–66% (at the same load factor) more goods from East Asia to Europe during the Arctic shipping season than by the traditional Suez Canal route. These findings highlight the need for aggressive actions to develop mandatory rules that promote navigation safety and strengthen environmental protection in the Arctic. |
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Keywords: | Satellite observations Navigability Model projections Transport efficiency Arctic environmental protection |
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