Global warming opening new shipping routes in Arctic Ocean

temperatures, and one that assumed an additional 10 percent increase in emissions, which is expected to produce a higher increase in temperatures. To their surprise, changes in accessibility were similarly dramatic under both scenarios.

“No matter which carbon emission scenario is considered, by mid-century we will have passed a crucial tipping point — sufficiently thin sea ice — enabling moderately capable icebreakers to go where they please,” Smith said.

The mid-century projections may seem distant when measured against the lifespan of adults living today, the researchers concede. But the period falls well within the long lead times of commercial and governmental planning efforts. As such, the projections have implications for port construction, acquisition of natural resources and the establishment of jurisdiction of shipping lanes, Smith and Stephenson stress.

Canada, for instance, has long maintained that the Northwest Passage falls under Canadian sovereignty, while the United States maintains it is an international strait. As long as the passage was essentially unnavigable, the issue was moot, but increasing accessibility could bring the United States into dispute with its northern neighbor, the researchers warn.

The increasing viability of shipping routes through the Arctic is also likely to increase pressure on the United States to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Some newly accessible shipping lanes would pass through waters over which the United States could make internationally accepted sovereignty claims if it ratified the treaty, the researchers said. Countries that claim sovereignty are able to lay down rules for the vessels that pass through their waters. Russia, which controls the Northern Sea Route, currently requires shipping companies to pay steep fees for escort vessels to accompany their fleets.

The unprecedented new navigation routes that are expected to open up could allow shipping companies to sidestep these escort fees and other Russian regulations, but these new lanes could take Polar Class 6 vessels and even common ships into less-regulated international waters.

While attractive to business, the lack of regulations poses safety, environmental, and legal issues that have yet to be resolved, the researchers stress. The prospect of open-water ships entering the Arctic Ocean in late summer heightens the urgency for comprehensive international regulations that provide adequate environmental protections, vessel safety standards and search-and-rescue capability, they said.

“The Arctic is a fragile and dangerous place,” Smith said.

— Read more in Laurence C. Smith and Scott R. Stephenson, “New Trans-Arctic shipping routes navigable by midcentury,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (4 March 2013)