Ships are projected to navigate whole year-round along the North Sea route by 2100

In the context of global warming, the Arctic sea ice is rapidly receding, and the possibility of navigating the Arctic shipping route continues to increase. Here we combine climate and ship navigability data and use low and medium emission scenarios to analyze sea ice conditions and navigability from 2023 to 2100, focusing on Polar Class 7 and open water vessels. The results show that sea ice motion deteriorates the navigability. Polar Class 7 ships will be able to sail the Arctic passages throughout all seasons except for the spring of 2065, while there is a comparative advantage of the Northern Sea Route for open-water ships. The optimal shipping routes of Polar Class 7 ships from 2065 to 2100 are more distributed toward the Central Arctic. These could considerably reshape the patterns of global shipping networks and international trade among Asia, Europe, and America.

Pengjun Zhao, Yunlin Li, Yu Zhang