The influence of landfast ice on the navigation in the Arctic Northeast Passage

Abstract

Landfast ice is one of the most important factors that affect the navigation safety of Arctic Northeast and Northwest Passages but usually is treated as drift ice in previous studies. This study focused on the situation of landfast ice in four key traits of the Arctic Northeast Passage from 2007 to 2021 and calculated the navigational windows for different ice-class vessels in the influence of landfast ice. The results show that the extent of landfast ice in these straits generally reaches its maximum from March to June, and decreases to a minimum or even disappears in July and August. The proportion of landfast ice extent in the four straits is quite different, such as Bering Strait (1.3%), De Long Strait (3.6%), Dmitry Laptev and Sannikov Strait (DLS Strait) (53.5%), and Vilkitsky Strait (27.8%). The average navigational windows range from 27 weeks (Bering Strait) to 8 weeks (Vilkitsky Strait) per year, and the Bering Strait showed the smallest increase trend (0.20 weeks per year), while the Vilkitsky Strait experienced the largest increase trend (0.62 weeks per year). The increasing navigational windows in the key straits are beneficial for future commercial and scientific expeditions of polar vessels in the Northeast Passage.