The Arctic Ocean presents tremendous challenges due to its remoteness and harsh climate, but has nevertheless prompted human aspirations spanning centuries. The abundant living and mineral resources, the potential for new scientific discoveries and new territories, the opportunities to flourish in long established peripheral homelands ? these diverse purposes have supported an Arctic that is far from empty. The ability to control the use of the Arctic Ocean has become increasingly valuable over time, supporting colonial and strategic developments along with commercial ones.

Now, Arctic sea ice is in rapid retreat, to levels not observed since at least 1850. An ice-free summer is on the horizon. More than any other Arctic trend, this massive transition has raised expectations for both new opportunities and new challenges, in hydrocarbon exploitation, international shipping, infrastructure development, fisheries, tourism, and Indigenous self-determination.

This project sought to understand the risks and costs associated with Arctic operations, particularly associated with feedbacks and unintended consequences. Specifically, we found that the emissions of black carbon associated with proposed increased Arctic shipping did not feedback to cause increased ice retreat. The signal was dwarfed in fact by black carbon emanating from sources at lower latitudes, such as manufacturing in China and Russia. That said, there was a small feedback specifically associated with Arctic shipping that led to changes in particular regions (the Greenland Sea and the Labrador Sea) caused by a shift in atmospheric circulation.

We systematically explored the potentials for opening of trans-Arctic sea routes across a range of emissions futures and multi-model ensembles. We found a new Transpolar Sea Route in the western Arctic for open water vessels starting in 2045 in addition to the central Arctic corridor over the North Pole. The emergence of this new western route could be decisive for operational and strategic outcomes. Specifically, the route redistributes transits away from the Russian-administered Northern Sea Route (NSR), lowering the navigational and financial risks and the regulatory friction. That said, in estimating the costs associated with uncertainties in these scenarios, we found that the costs of uncertainty in interannual variability are larger than the costs of uncertainty in climate scenario, even out to the 2060s. This cost is typically hidden due the practice of using multi-model ensemble averages to estimate future risks.

Because Russia is the most extensive Arctic nation and mantains jurisdiction over the most active shipping route in the Arctic, the NSR, we also investigated the impact of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Internationally imposed sanctions on Russia prohibit payments for NSR access, have led to refusals to insure vessels and cargo, and have deterred usage due to legal uncertainties. Furthermore, Russia has limited NSR access for strategic reasons. Costs are high: using 16 climate model realizations and prudent assumptions regarding global trade, we estimate the cumulative cost of closing the NSR for the season could range from just under US$900 million to as much as US$3.3 billion.

Last Modified: 06/19/2023
Modified by: Amanda Lynch