Abstract
Since 2005, a dramatic decline of the Arctic sea-ice extent is observed which results in an increase of shipping activities. Even though this provides commercial and social development opportunities, the resulting environmental impacts need to be investigated and monitored. In order to understand the impact of shipping in arctic areas, the method described in this paper determines the travel time, fuel consumption and resulting exhaust emissions of ships navigating in arctic waters. The investigated case studies are considering ship particulars as well as environmental conditions with special focus on ice scenarios. Travel time, fuel consumption and exhaust gas emission were investigated for three different vessels, using different passages of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in different seasons of years 1960, 2000 and 2040. The presented results show the sensitivity of vessel performance and amount of exhaust emissions to optimize arctic traffic with respect to efficiency, safety and environmental impact.
Highlights
Since 2005, an observable decrease of the Arctic sea ice extent, peaking in a record minimum in 2011–2012 during Arctic summer period
Several studies have assessed the potential impacts of international shipping on climate and air pollution (Derwent et al 2005; Eyring et al 2005) and have demonstrated that ships contribute significantly to global climate change and health impacts through emission of many pollutants such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and various species of particulate matter (PM) including organic carbon (OC) and black carbon (BC)
A significant difference between these two groups can be seen in the fuel consumption while only minor variations occur for the travelling time
Summary
Since 2005, an observable decrease of the Arctic sea ice extent, peaking in a record minimum in 2011–2012 during Arctic summer period. These circumstances generated a high interest in establishing new trade routes. Even though increasing Arctic shipping may provide commercial and social development opportunities, the resulting environmental impacts need to be investigated in detail. At present the shipping in the Arctic Ocean provides a relatively small proportion to the global shipping emissions, regional effects from substances such as BC and ozone (O3) become important to be quantified and understood
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