Optimized Northern Sea Route and Navigation Simulation

The Tenth Symposium on Polar Science/Ordinary sessions: [OM] Polar Meteorology and Glaciology, Wed. 4 Dec. / Entrance Hall (1st floor) , National Institute of Polar Researc

Shorter shipping routes through the Arctic are not necessarily more climate friendly

Long inaccessible to ships, as a consequence of global warming, much of the Arctic Ocean is now navigable in the summer months. While the newly ice-free Northern Sea Route cuts the distance of the journey between Northern Europe and Japan by 40 percent, recent research from Haakon-Elizabeth Lindstad and colleagues shows that it may not be more climate-friendly. Assessing the cost, emissions and climate impact of using the Northern Sea Route compared to the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal, they find that the impact of shipping-related greenhouse gas emissions in the Arctic region counteracts the benefits of the shorter voyage distance and lower fuel consumption

Implications from opening Arctic sea routes

Summary for Policy Makers The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth; satellite observations have revealed the region is losing sea ice at a dramatic rate and this decline is expected to continue. This loss of sea ice is creating opportunities for shorter global trade links between East Asia and the UK via the Arctic. The Northern Sea Route and North West Passages are seasonally open most years, although specialised vessels are currently required. The Arctic shipping season will continue to extend tripling in length by mid-century, coinciding with the opening of the trans-polar sea route across the central Arctic Ocean, although there will still be sea ice present in the Arctic winter. Typically by mid-century voyages from East Asia to the UK could save 10 – 12 days by using trans-Arctic routes instead of the Suez Canal route. These findings suggest that trans-Arctic routes may provide a useful supplement to the traditional canal routes, but they will likely not replace them. There are mixed views on whether trans-Arctic routes will become economically viable. The Russian government wishes to develop the Northern Sea Route as a commercial enterprise and offers substantial fee-based services such as ice breaking support and pilotage, which are certainly necessary for future investment and development of the route. However Arctic transport is also likely to grow due to increased destination shipping to serve natural resource extraction projects and cruise tourism. The UK is well positioned, geographically, geopolitically, and commercially, to benefit from a symbiotic relationship with increasing Arctic shipping. The UK has a prominent role in Arctic science and a world leading maritime services industry based in London, including the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), one of the world’s leading financial centres, and Europe’s largest insurance sector. Arctic economic growth is focused in four key sectors — mineral resources, fisheries, logistics, and tourism — all of which require shipping, and could generate investment reaching $100bn or more in the Arctic region over the next decade. The UK had a fundamental role in preparing the UN IMO Polar Code which came into operation in January 2017. The Polar Code is an historic milestone in addressing the specific risks faced by Arctic shipping and acts to supplement the existing SOLAS and MARPOL conventions for protecting the environment whilst ensuring safe shipping in international waters. Much of the investment into Arctic shipping projects is from China but northern European countries are also playing an increasing role. Potential opportunities for the UK include the development of UK based Arctic cruise tourism, and a UK based trans-shipment port — transferring goods from ice-classed vessels to conventional carriers. The UK has an active diplomatic role in many international organisations; this should be used to ensure that increased activity in the Arctic is accomplished in line with established UN maritime conventions, many of which were written with significant UK contributions. The UK’s leading role in Arctic science has wide reaching positive implications for international collaboration; this role requires continued investment into climate modelling centres, and science programs, that are essential to enhance predictions of the future Arctic

Proposing a common platform of shipping cost analysis of the Northern Sea Route and the Suez Canal Route

Maritime trade between East Asia and Northwest Europe using the Northern Sea Route (NSR) has been recently increasing, because ship operators may take advantage of the shorter sailing distance of NSR whose navigable season has become longer because of retreating Arctic sea ice. As Arctic sea ice continues to retreat because of global warming, the NSR is now approximately 40 per cent shorter than the Suez Canal Route (SCR) for such trade. In 2013, shipping on the NSR marked a record 10 year-high volume of 1.36 million tons with 71 voyages. Accordingly, comparative analyses of estimated shipping cost via the NSR and the alternative conventional routes, especially the SCR, have been carried out. Furthermore, NSR/SCR-combined shipping, that is, when a vessel transits the NSR during the warmer months and the SCR in the colder months, has already been proposed as a realistic scenario for Arctic shipping in the previous studies. Since assumptions used in the cost estimations vary among the studies, as discussed by Lasserre, there remain some difficulties when comparing estimated shipping costs. This study aims at establishing a common platform of a wide range of cost estimation assumptions, through clarifying and analysing the cost components contained in the current literature. In addition, interviews with NSR shipping professionals were conducted concerning the NSR fee on an unofficial basis, since typically such fees are determined based on negotiations between ice breaker escort service provider and shipping company. An empirical analysis revealed that NSR/SCR-combined shipping of container cargo between East Asia and Northwest Europe can be commercially feasible

A hybrid Delphi-SWOT paradigm for oil and gas pipeline strategic planning in Caspian Sea basin

The Caspian Sea basin holds large quantities of both oil and natural gas that could help meet the increasing global demand for energy resources. Consequently, the oil and gas potential of the region has attracted the attention of the international oil and gas industry. The key to realizing the energy producing potential of the region is the development of transnational export routes to take oil and gas from the landlocked Caspian Sea basin to world markets. The evaluation and selection of alternative transnational export routes is a complex multi-criteria problem with conflicting objectives. The decision makers (DMs) are required to consider a vast amount of information concerning internal strengths and weaknesses of the alternative routes as well as external opportunities and threats to them. This paper presents a hybrid model that combines strength, weakness, opportunity and threat (SWOT) analysis with the Delphi metho

Reconnaissance surveying of Bechevin Bay, AK using satellite-derived bathymetry

Recently, a remote sensing study has been conducted over Bechevin Bay Channel, Alaska as part of a collaboration project between NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). The goal of the study to develop a procedure to prioritize survey areas and plan the annual deployment of Aids to Navigation (AtoN) along the channel. Bechevin Bay is considered a priority for marine surveying because it constitutes the easternmost passage through the Aleutians from the Bering Sea to the Gulf of Alaska. The channel is located in a mud flat area, where every winter the passage is closed due to ice cover. As a result, the path of the channel may change after sea ice has melted. Because of the geographic location of Bechevin Bay, many resources are required in order to conduct an annual survey to map the channel’s path. The surveys are typically conducted by the USCG buoy tenders using small boats and reconnaissance-style single beam lines. This paper presents the use of single-image satellite-derived bathymetry (SDB) as an economic alternative approach. The study compares the performance using different band ratios. Datasets that were used in the study included Landsat 8 and WorldView 2 (WV-2) imagery