Sea ice variability and maritime activity around Svalbard in the period 2012–2019

Abstract

Climate change is strongly impacting the Arctic environment, leading to rapid sea ice loss. In some sectors, the retreating ice edge is perceived as an opportunity to expand and develop economic activities. Previous studies show this development in the Canadian and Russian Arctic. This paper examines mobility patterns of cruise ships and fishing vessels around Svalbard, a major hotspot of maritime activity and retreating sea ice cover, in relation to sea ice variability between August 2012 and September 2019. The results show a slight overall increase in fisheries and cruise activity, as well as remarkable trends of stretching operational seasons and expanding navigational areas in these sectors. Overall increasing activity and changing mobility patterns provoke a discussion about the implications for safe navigation and sustainable management, thus raising issues of high pan-Arctic relevance.

Copernicus Marine Service Ocean State Report, Issue 5

“…Maritime traffic around the Svalbard archipelago has shown changing patterns during the last decade, with expanding seasons and operational areas (Stocker et al 2020). In this challenging operational environment, seaice remains one of the major sources of uncertainty for navigating in this area, and there is a need for sea-ice information that can be easily downloaded and visualised by end-users.…”

“…The target variables (sea-ice drift direction and speed) used for developing and evaluating the calibrated forecasts are computed from the Sentinel-1 observations (MOSAIC product, reference 3.5.2). Short-term wind forecasts (direction and speed) from the European Centre for Stocker et al (2020). Automatic Identification System (AIS) data (product reference 3.5.4) from the Norwegian Coastal administration (Kystverket) was used to illustrate the number of unique vessels per month in the Svalbard Fisheries Protection Zone between January 2012 and September 2019.…”

“…For example, the past decade has seen the total number of cruise passengers growing by 73% from 38,737 in 2008 to 66900 in 2018 (Stautland 2019). Recent studies show an increase in operational seasons and an expansion of operational areas around Svalbard (Stocker et al 2020), showing that growing numbers of vessels sail into areas higher than 80 degrees north (Aase and Jabour 2015;Bystrowska 2019). In recent years, there has been a large rise in the number of smaller vessels in the Arctic (IPCC 2019).…”

Drivers of Interannual Sea Ice Concentration Variability in the Atlantic Water Inflow Region North of Svalbard

“…In this study, heat flux from the ocean to the atmosphere decreased markedly during high SIC conditions, and episodes of sea ice advection into the area were typically followed by a cooling of the air. In addition to air temperature, interannual sea ice variability north of Svalbard has the potential to impact ecosystem dynamics (Post et al, 2013) and human activities (Silber & Adams, 2019;Stocker et al, 2020), and the successful prediction of seasonal sea ice concentration in the region could be of use to, for example, fisheries management and tourism operators in the area. This study implies that large-scale sea ice advection from the north, which may be associated with specific atmospheric configurations over the Arctic Ocean, is a primary driver of interannual sea ice along the FSAW pathway north of Svalbard.…”

Implementation of an Adaptive Bias‐Aware Extended Kalman Filter for Sea‐Ice Data Assimilation in the HARMONIE‐AROME Numerical Weather Prediction System

“…For the Arctic Ocean it results in a stable trend of diminishing the sea ice cover (Cavalieri & Parkinson, 2012). Reduced sea ice cover opens great opportunities for enhanced economic activity in the region which gets raised attention (see, e.g., Meier et al., 2014; Stocker et al., 2020). With increasing economic activity in the Arctic, a high demand is placed on accurate and reliable weather forecasts (Emmerson & Lahn, 2012).…”