Feasibility of the Northern Sea Route: Impact of Sea Ice Thickness Uncertainty on Navigation

Abstract

With the accelerated melting of the Arctic sea ice, the opening of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) of the Arctic is becoming increasingly accessible. The purpose of this paper was to examine the impact of uncertainty in sea ice thickness (SIT) data on the opening of the NSR and to quantify the extent of this impact, which is essential to the regularized operation of polar shipping. A quantitative assessment framework was proposed to examine the influence of SIT data uncertainty on navigational uncertainty through three aspects: the navigational spatiotemporal windows, the distribution of safe sailing speeds, and the uncertainty in optimal route planning by employing four distinct SIT datasets. Furthermore, the sensitivity of navigational spatiotemporal windows, the distribution of safe sailing speeds, and route planning to variations in SIT were also evaluated. Results show that experiment results based on CS2SMOS exhibit a more aggressive profile, while results based on CPOM are more conservative. The difference in SIT data has a significant impact on the proportion of operations subject to special consideration areas, such as safety speed, sailing time, and distance in NEP. A 0.1 m discrepancy in sea ice thickness data results in an approximate 0.067 change in the proportion of operations within special consideration areas. This discrepancy also leads to an approximate speed change of 0.89 knots, a navigation duration change of approximately 4 days, and a distance change of 152 km within specified limits.