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Summary of Seasonal Traffic Patterns for In-Arctic Shipping: (a) Global data prior to this work; (b) Winter shipping 2004; (c) Spring shipping 2004; (d) Summer shipping 2004; (e) Fall shipping 2004; and (f) Potential global shipping diversion routes given navigable routes for diversion traffic open in Arctic.
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The Arctic is a sensitive region in terms of climate change and a rich natural resource for global economic activity. Arctic shipping is an important contributor to the region's anthropogenic air emissions, including black carbon – a short-lived climate forcing pollutant especially effective in accelerating the melting of ice and snow. These emissi...
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Citations
... But overall, the calculation results show that the BC emissions of Arctic shipping are increasing yearly. Among them, the BC emissions from Arctic shipping are expected to reach 2700 t in 2050 [29]. From a spatial perspective, BC emissions are higher near Arctic land. ...
Black carbon (BC) emissions from Arctic shipping are accelerating the melting of local glaciers, affecting the Arctic's fragile natural and ecological environment, and posing potential hazards to local public health. The issue of BC emissions from Arctic shipping has attracted the attention of all countries and internationals, and a relevant international governance system is gradually being established, but progress is plodding. This study analyses the status and framework of international governance of Arctic shipping BC emissions. Subsequently, current impediments to governance progress and potential countermeasures to advance governance are discussed. The study finds that the global governance of Arctic shipping BC emissions is still in the monitoring and evaluation stage, and there is a lack of substantive governance and supervision at multiple levels. The current governance is not enough to deal with the huge challenge of increasing BC emissions from ships in the Arctic, and fragmentation, contradiction, ambiguity, limitation, and immaturity hinder the advancement of governance. This study suggests that shipping BC should be more integrated into relevant international regulations on climate change and air pollutant governance, and should enhance the role of BC in climate change mitigation strategies. At the same time, Arctic countries and ports can also take the lead in adopting strict fuel and emissions controls measures.
... ASR are the shortest from Europe to Asia, which means it can considerably take the load off traditional line. Experts predict that Arctic shipping will account for 2% of global shipping by 2030 and 5% by 2050 (Corbett et al. 2010). In March 2020, PAME released a report titled "The Increase in Arctic Shipping 2013-2019." ...
Ship-source pollution is one of the important contributors to marine environment pollution. Because the legal status of the Arctic shipping routes is not clear, there is a considerable degree of dispute in the application of the rules on the prevention and control of ship-source pollution. The increased melting of sea ice undermines the legal legitimacy of the “ice-covered areas” clause under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The conflict between the application of the Polar Code and “ice-covered areas” will also reach an initial conclusion in the context of melting sea ice. However, the inadequacy of ship-source pollution rules in the Polar Code hampers its application, which has led to a negative impact on the more active role in the governance of pollution from Arctic shipping. For replying to the Challenges in the prevention of ship-source pollution in Arctic shipping routes, the relevant rules of the Polar Code need to be further improved, while a more binding HFO ban according to ship types needs to be applied. Therefore, a more important role in the future Arctic governance mechanism will be played by the enhanced enforcement of the Polar Code, meanwhile, the target for uniform international regulation of preventing and controlling ship-source pollution in Arctic shipping routes should be achieved.
... From 1979 to 2018, the 90-day safe transportation area for ships in the open waters of the Arctic route expanded by 35%, and it showed a trend of year-on-year expansion (Cao et al., 2022), which has increased the accessibility of the Arctic and the enthusiasm of people to establish new trade routes. This is estimated to lead to up to 5 % of global shipping traffic being diverted to the Arctic route (Corbett et al., 2010). At the same time, the abundant natural resources (oil, natural gas, etc.) in the Arctic have also attracted the attention of countries around the Arctic. ...
... At present, the air pollution emissions of shipping in the Arctic have been quantified, such as through the bottom-up method to develop the Arctic shipping emissions inventory (Corbett et al., 2010;Winther et al., 2014), or estimate the contribution of Arctic shipping to atmospheric concentrations in the region by building observation models (Aliabadi et al., 2015;Gong et al., 2018). The researches aim to quantify air pollutants and pollution related to Arctic shipping. ...
... Shipping emissions such as precursor gases (SO 2 , NO x , VOC) and BC affect atmospheric aerosols (Corbett et al., 2010;Winther et al., 2014). The accelerated melting of Arctic sea ice is expected to increase shipping activity in the region (Corbett et al., 2010). ...
Global warming has led to rapid warming in the Arctic region and continuous melting of ice and snow, and the seaworthiness of the Arctic shipping routes is increasing significantly. This has also aroused widespread concern from the international community regarding the environmental impact of Arctic shipping activities. Thus, this paper reviews 75 articles to evaluate the different impacts of Arctic shipping on the region’s environment. The research results show that the impact of current Arctic shipping activities is extensive, and it can identify three major impacts: impact on water bodies, impact of air emissions and impact on animal survival. In this context, to mitigate the growing negative impact of shipping activities on the fragile Arctic environment, it is essential to adopt technical and operational solutions for ships and formulate new or stricter standards and rules for Arctic shipping activities. At the same time, existing research has gaps in four areas: Arctic environmental and ecological baseline surveys, quantitative research on the direct and synergistic environmental impacts from Arctic shipping, implications of Arctic shipping activities on aboriginal health, and the Arctic shipping gas emission model based on artificial intelligence technology. We recommend enriching relevant research to enhance the ability to assess the impacts of Arctic shipping routes.
... However, numerous exemptions will last until 2029. Fortunately, since most Arctic shipping occurs in summer, the resulting black carbon emissions are less likely to be deposited on top of snow and ice (Corbett et al. 2010). ...
... Black carbon emissions from oil and gas extraction may have a more significant impact on Arctic climate change than those from shipping. Drilling occurs year-round, meaning that there is a large win dow during which black carbon can fall onto snow and ice (Corbett et al. 2010). e practice of gas flaring (burning off excess gas that cannot be exported or sold) contributes 42 percent of annual mean black carbon surface concentrations in the Arctic (Stohl et al. 2013), a figure that is poised to rise due to the opening in recent years of new resource extraction sites. ...
China is not just a geopolitical force: the rising power has become a geological agent, too. Green house gas emissions from industrial sites like Chinese steel mills are melting Arctic sea ice, which in turn affects atmospheric circulation patterns that disrupt weather in Chinese cities.
... Black carbon (BC) which is a result of ship emissions could lead to worse environmental effects such as faster melting sea ices in the Polar Regions. BC emission rates are lower in the Arctic rather than in other seas for now but increasing maritime activity in the vicinity is showing that it is going to grow (Corbett et al., 2010). Many other studies completed and still continue on the impact of BC emissions especially in Arctic due to shipping (Li et. ...
The Russian Federation has a great advantage in the Arctic Ocean because of its long coastline which also has less sea ice concentration in summer to allow vessels to pass with ease. Due to newly opening polar routes in the Arctic, maritime logistics, port and maritime affairs have become more sensitized for Arctic Council countries. But this increase is coming with various anthropogenic effects on Arctic Environment. Polar Code aims to control, force and advice for ships with many environmental applications to ensure safety. Arctic Council's Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA) report emphasizes the increase in vessel traffic in the Arctic due to climate change and eight recommendations were made to take steps for Arctic Environment. Also, the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) working on the same issue. Nevertheless, the Arctic Environment is still vulnerable to increased maritime activity and many more steps including increasing scientific research will be on the agenda.
As a result of this, this study aims to provide the latest overview of the situation to the regional and international lawmakers for the sustainability of Arctic maritime activities and its environmental effects by the ice-class ships within the scope of the polar code with a statistical approach, using the database of the Russian Northern Sea Route Administration (NSRA). However, the uncertain results of the war between Russia and Ukraine could change the Arctic’s future different from the results of these study.
... Black carbon (BC) which is a result of ship emissions could lead to worse environmental effects such as faster melting sea ices in the Polar Regions. BC emission rates are lower in the Arctic rather than in other seas for now but increasing maritime activity in the vicinity is showing that it is going to grow (Corbett et al., 2010). Many other studies completed and still continue on the impact of BC emissions especially in Arctic due to shipping (Li et. ...
This year’s theme, “The Russian Arctic: Economics, Politics & Peoples” was chosen, at the turn of 2021-2022 and prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, due to the high relevance of the Russian Arctic in every aspect of Arctic politics. The region comprises over half of the Arctic’s land surface area, mostly covered by permafrost, and almost half of the coastline and the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Arctic Ocean. Its population consists of almost 70% of the total number of Arctic inhabitants. The volume of its economy with multiple fields of exploitation is 73% of that of the Arctic. Despite being largely covered by permafrost, the Russian part of the Arctic contains large cities and numerous towns and villages, as well as road networks and even railways. These populated centers, many of them ‘mono-towns’, are surrounded by advanced infrastructure – both old and new – and consist of mines, smelters and other factories, harbors, airports and other transportation means, research stations, as well as navel and other military bases. Since the time of tzardom, Russian scientists and scholars have explored the Arctic and conducted field work studying geography, Arctic ecosystems, climate, cryospheric sciences, glaciers, the Arctic Ocean, and sea-ice. The Russian Arctic is also home to diverse groups of Indigenous peoples with their unique languages, cultures and livelihoods. Research done by and with Russian scientists, scholars and academic institutions is an invaluable part of international Arctic research.
The Russian Arctic is therefore an incredibly important part of the entire Arctic region to understand, not only because the Russian Federation is the biggest and largest of the eight Arctic states. And yet, the region is often either not known, and/or misunderstood to external audiences and stakeholders, with superficial characterizations proliferating due to a lack of up-to-date information. There is thus a need for sophisticated English-language scholarship on the Russian Arctic, especially from Russian authors themselves. That is the intent of the Arctic Yearbook 2022.
... Besides the economic benefits, several authors have also focussed on assessing the impact of shipping via the NSR (Dalsøren et al., 2007, Corbett et al., 2010, Paxian et al., 2010, Yumashev et al., 2017, Hauser et al., 2018, Zhu et al., 2018, Wang et al., 2020. These studies either focus on the potential benefit of global CO 2 -emission reductions or the impact of local exhaust emissions. ...
In this paper, the possibility of adding the North Sea Route (NSR) route to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is researched whereby the main aim is to determine if it is possible to set up a container service via the NSR route that could attract cargo from the existing maritime routes via Suez and the land route. In order to make the analysis, a model which is able to calculate the total generalised chain cost for a supply chain is used and updated.
This analysis shows that it is possible to set up such a competitive service compared to the land bridge and the Suez Canal Route (SCR) for cargo that has a high value of time. For these specific cargo types, it is possible to attract cargo for the NSR from the SCR at equal costs, but with an average time saving of 10%. Comparing the BRI or land bridge to the SCR, there is a cost increase of 20% and a time decrease of almost 65%. Considering the rather strict limitation in capacity, it should be noted that a single NSR service of eight 5,400 TEU vessels already offers around half the capacity of the land bridge. The uncertainty in arrival times, however, would remain an issue in the NSR service, but with ice diminishing, this risk will decrease as well.
... Marine engines are also one of the most important sources of particulate emissions in port cities with high population density (Viana et al. 2014). According to a widely cited study, it is estimated that if no effective measures are taken, the global black carbon emissions from marine vessels will increase nearly three times from 2004 to 2050 (Corbett et al. 2010). ...
Ship black carbon emissions have caused great harm to ecological environment. In order to estimate the black carbon emissions, thereby reducing the cost of black carbon experiments, here, we introduced four machine learning algorithms which are lasso regression, support vector machine, extreme gradient boosting, and artificial neural network to predict ship black carbon emissions. The prediction models were established with using the datasets acquired from similar marine engines under various steady-state conditions. The results show that SVM, XGB, and ANN have higher prediction accuracy than lasso regression, and the adjusted R² of each model is 0.9810, 0.9850, 0.9885, and 0.6088. Although ANN shows the best prediction performance, it is inferior to SVM and XGB in terms of model stability and training cost. Then, in order to simplify the optimization process of hyperparameters and improve the prediction accuracy of the model at the same time, we use three different swarm intelligence algorithms to automatically optimize the hyperparameters of SVM and XGB. In addition, we applied mutual information to measure the correlation between the characteristics of the prediction models and black carbon concentration and found that the characteristics which related to in-cylinder combustion have a strong correlation with the black carbon concentration. The findings in this paper prove the feasibility of machine learning in ship black carbon emission prediction and could provide references for reducing ship black carbon emissions and the formulation of emission regulations.
... Nevertheless, an increasing abundance of natural OAs in a warming Arctic is expected 21 as a result of northward-expanding vegetation 22 , intensifying boreal forest fires 23,24 , decreasing sea-ice extent 25 and thawing permafrost 26,27 . Enhanced OA emissions are also expected from increasing local anthropogenic emissions, which include oil and gas exploration, and shipping activities 28,29 . ...
Aerosols play an important yet uncertain role in modulating the radiation balance of the sensitive Arctic atmosphere. Organic aerosol is one of the most abundant, yet least understood, fractions of the Arctic aerosol mass. Here we use data from eight observatories that represent the entire Arctic to reveal the annual cycles in anthropogenic and biogenic sources of organic aerosol. We show that during winter, the organic aerosol in the Arctic is dominated by anthropogenic emissions, mainly from Eurasia, which consist of both direct combustion emissions and long-range transported, aged pollution. In summer, the decreasing anthropogenic pollution is replaced by natural emissions. These include marine secondary, biogenic secondary and primary biological emissions, which have the potential to be important to Arctic climate by modifying the cloud condensation nuclei properties and acting as ice-nucleating particles. Their source strength or atmospheric processing is sensitive to nutrient availability, solar radiation, temperature and snow cover. Our results provide a comprehensive understanding of the current pan-Arctic organic aerosol, which can be used to support modelling efforts that aim to quantify the climate impacts of emissions in this sensitive region.
... Studies [8][9][10][11] showed that emissions of black carbon (BC) particles, released during incomplete combustion of fossil fuel and biomass at Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes, are one of the main pollution sources for the atmosphere. The continuing retreat of Arctic sea ice, making this area increasingly more accessible, leads to a potential increase of emissions from local industrial (shipping [12][13][14], oil and gas production [15]) sources. Based on measurements and modeling of the spatiotemporal variations in aerosol and BC concentrations, the authors of works [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] indicate enhanced pollution in the entire Arctic troposphere: the contribution from sources in northern Eurasia (North America and Asia) are predominant in lower layers (at high altitudes). ...
... In the recent decade, there have been markedly more works devoted to studying the aerosol properties in this area [10][11][12][13][14][15][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. In the Russian sector of the Arctic, in situ measurements have been performed regularly at polar stations in settlements Barentsburg (Svalbard Archipelago) [33,34] and Tiksi [35,36], at Ice Base Cape Baranov (Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago) [37,38], and in yearly marine expeditions [39][40][41][42][43]. Rare studies onboard aircraft laboratories have also been carried out [44][45][46]. ...
