Sea ice choke points reduce the length of the shipping season in the Northwest Passage

Alison J. Cook; Jackie Dawson; Stephen E. L. Howell; Jean E. Holloway; Mike Brady

doi:10.1038/s43247-024-01477-6

Sea ice choke points reduce the length of the shipping season in the Northwest Passage

Alison J. Cook, Jackie Dawson, Stephen E. L. Howell, Jean E. Holloway, Mike Brady

SAMS UHI

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

18 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Arctic sea ice has shifted from a perennial (older, thicker ice) to a seasonal (younger, thinner) ice regime, leading to the increasingly common belief that shipping through Canada’s Northwest Passage is becoming more viable. Here, we use the Risk Index Outcome values derived from the Polar Operational Limit Assessment Risk Indexing System and analyze recent changes to shipping season lengths along individual sections of the Northwest Passage routes from 2007 to 2021. Results show that multi-year ice flushed southward from high-latitude regions maintains the so-called choke points along certain route sections, reducing overall shipping season length. There is considerable spatiotemporal variability in shipping season lengths along the southern and northern routes. Specifically, parts of the northern route exhibit a decrease of up to 14 weeks over the 15 years. The variability of shipping season and, in particular, the shortening of the season will impact not only international shipping but also resupply and the cost of food in many Arctic communities, which require a prompt policy response.

Original language	English
Article number	362
Number of pages	11
Journal	Communications Earth & Environment
Volume	5
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01477-6
Publication status	Published - 11 Jul 2024

Keywords

Arctic Ocean
Canada
Northwest Passage
cost analysis
food supply
sea ice
seasonal variation
shipping
spatial variation
temporal variation

Access to Document

10.1038/s43247-024-01477-6Licence: CC BY

Sea ice choke points reduce the length of the shipping season in the Northwest Passage
© The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 3.18 MBLicence: CC BY

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01477-6Licence: CC BY

Handle.net

Persistent link

Cite this

@article{fc29b32d49a94ce892941b45b50f717b,

title = "Sea ice choke points reduce the length of the shipping season in the Northwest Passage",

abstract = "Arctic sea ice has shifted from a perennial (older, thicker ice) to a seasonal (younger, thinner) ice regime, leading to the increasingly common belief that shipping through Canada{\textquoteright}s Northwest Passage is becoming more viable. Here, we use the Risk Index Outcome values derived from the Polar Operational Limit Assessment Risk Indexing System and analyze recent changes to shipping season lengths along individual sections of the Northwest Passage routes from 2007 to 2021. Results show that multi-year ice flushed southward from high-latitude regions maintains the so-called choke points along certain route sections, reducing overall shipping season length. There is considerable spatiotemporal variability in shipping season lengths along the southern and northern routes. Specifically, parts of the northern route exhibit a decrease of up to 14 weeks over the 15 years. The variability of shipping season and, in particular, the shortening of the season will impact not only international shipping but also resupply and the cost of food in many Arctic communities, which require a prompt policy response.",

keywords = "Arctic Ocean, Canada, Northwest Passage, cost analysis, food supply, sea ice, seasonal variation, shipping, spatial variation, temporal variation",

author = "Cook, {Alison J.} and Jackie Dawson and Howell, {Stephen E. L.} and Holloway, {Jean E.} and Mike Brady",

note = "{\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.",

year = "2024",

month = jul,

day = "11",

doi = "10.1038/s43247-024-01477-6",

language = "English",

volume = "5",

journal = "Communications Earth & Environment",

issn = "2662-4435",

publisher = "Springer Nature",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Sea ice choke points reduce the length of the shipping season in the Northwest Passage

AU - Cook, Alison J.

AU - Dawson, Jackie

AU - Howell, Stephen E. L.

AU - Holloway, Jean E.

AU - Brady, Mike

N1 - © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

PY - 2024/7/11

Y1 - 2024/7/11

N2 - Arctic sea ice has shifted from a perennial (older, thicker ice) to a seasonal (younger, thinner) ice regime, leading to the increasingly common belief that shipping through Canada’s Northwest Passage is becoming more viable. Here, we use the Risk Index Outcome values derived from the Polar Operational Limit Assessment Risk Indexing System and analyze recent changes to shipping season lengths along individual sections of the Northwest Passage routes from 2007 to 2021. Results show that multi-year ice flushed southward from high-latitude regions maintains the so-called choke points along certain route sections, reducing overall shipping season length. There is considerable spatiotemporal variability in shipping season lengths along the southern and northern routes. Specifically, parts of the northern route exhibit a decrease of up to 14 weeks over the 15 years. The variability of shipping season and, in particular, the shortening of the season will impact not only international shipping but also resupply and the cost of food in many Arctic communities, which require a prompt policy response.

AB - Arctic sea ice has shifted from a perennial (older, thicker ice) to a seasonal (younger, thinner) ice regime, leading to the increasingly common belief that shipping through Canada’s Northwest Passage is becoming more viable. Here, we use the Risk Index Outcome values derived from the Polar Operational Limit Assessment Risk Indexing System and analyze recent changes to shipping season lengths along individual sections of the Northwest Passage routes from 2007 to 2021. Results show that multi-year ice flushed southward from high-latitude regions maintains the so-called choke points along certain route sections, reducing overall shipping season length. There is considerable spatiotemporal variability in shipping season lengths along the southern and northern routes. Specifically, parts of the northern route exhibit a decrease of up to 14 weeks over the 15 years. The variability of shipping season and, in particular, the shortening of the season will impact not only international shipping but also resupply and the cost of food in many Arctic communities, which require a prompt policy response.

KW - Arctic Ocean

KW - Canada

KW - Northwest Passage

KW - cost analysis

KW - food supply

KW - sea ice

KW - seasonal variation

KW - shipping

KW - spatial variation

KW - temporal variation

U2 - 10.1038/s43247-024-01477-6

DO - 10.1038/s43247-024-01477-6

M3 - Article

SN - 2662-4435

VL - 5

JO - Communications Earth & Environment

JF - Communications Earth & Environment

IS - 1

M1 - 362

ER -

Sea ice choke points reduce the length of the shipping season in the Northwest Passage

Abstract

Keywords

Access to Document

Handle.net

Fingerprint

Cite this