Ice melt may allow ships to sail across Arctic by 2050

LOS ANGELES: The Arctic sea ice cover, melting rapidly due to global warming, will be so thin by 2050 that ships will be able to sail directly across the North Pole for the first time, experts have predicted. Researchers said it could also lead to unprecedented geo-political tensions between countries that have territorial claims in the region.


Global warming will make these frigid routes much more accessible than ever imagined by melting an unprecedented amount of sea ice during the late summer, a University of California — Los Angeles (UCLA) research shows.

“Nobody’s ever talked about shipping over the top of the North Pole. This is an entirely unexpected possibility,” said lead researcher Laurence C Smith, a professor of geography. “The development is both exciting from an economic development point of view and worrisome in terms of safety, both for the Arctic environment and for the ships themselves,” Smith said.

The findings, which explore accessibility during the Arctic’s most navigable month of the year, September, appear in the journal Proceedings. The first thorough assessment of trans-Arctic shipping potential as global temperatures continue to rise, the study is based on independent climate forecasts for the years 2040 to 2059.

By mid-century , even ordinary shipping vessels will be able to navigate previously inaccessible parts of the Arctic Ocean, and they will not need icebreakers to blaze their path as they do today, the researchers found. “We’re talking about a future in which open-water vessels will, at least during some years, be able to navigate unescorted through the Arctic, which at the moment is inconceivable,” said coauthor Scott R Stephenson.

The Arctic ice sheet is expected to thin to the point that polar icebreakers will be able to navigate between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by making a straight shot over the North Pole, Smith and Stephenson predict. The route directly over the North Pole is 20% shorter than today’s most-trafficked Arctic shipping lane, the Northern Sea Route. For vessels travelling between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Yokohama, Japan, the Northern Sea Route is approximately 40% shorter than the traditional route through the Suez Canal.

Even the fabled and notoriously treacherous Northwest Passage, which traces Canada’s coastline and offers the most direct route from Asia to eastern Canada and northeasternmost part of the US, is expected to become more viable for Polar Class 6 vessels. Today, the Northwest Passage is theoretically navigable only one out of seven years, the researchers said.