Length of Navigation Season in Current Conditions of Climate Change on the Northern Sea Route

ABSTRACT: The paper first analyzed ice maps for the years 2008-2022. Despite the general convergence of trends of opening and closing of navigable season for concentrations 18% and 81% the Eastern Part and Western Part of the NSR looks they are under different driving factors. Found some tendencies and cyclical changes, but not working for the whole studied period. The studied period of 15 navigation seasons from statistical point of view is too short period of time to forecast trends and cycles in the near future. Next, ships traffic and ice conditions being on the NSR for the years 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021 were examined. The navigable time windows of Arc4, arc5 and Arc7 class ships were determined. Found, the not navigable period of time for any class of merchant ships lasted 3 months.

KEYWORDS: Arctic Navigation, Ship Safety Modelling, Icebreaker, Northern Sea Route (NSR), Arctic Shipping, Marine Climate, Climate Change, Navigation Season

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Citation note:

Pastusiak T.: Length of Navigation Season in Current Conditions of Climate Change on the Northern Sea Route. TransNav, the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation, Vol. 18, No. 3, doi:10.12716/1001.18.03.02, pp. 493-502, 2024

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Tadeusz Pastusiak: ORCID iD icon

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