Arctic shipping routes are the maritime paths used by vessels to navigate through parts or the entirety of the Arctic. There are three main routes that connect the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans: the Northeast Passage, the Northwest Passage, and the mostly unused Transpolar Sea Route. In addition, two other significant routes exist: the Northern Sea Route, and the Arctic Bridge.
To connect the Atlantic with the Pacific, the Northwest Passage goes along the Northern Canadian and Alaskan coasts, the Northeast Passage (NEP) follows the Russian and Norwegian coasts, and the Transpolar Sea Route crosses the Arctic through the North Pole.
The Arctic Bridge is an internal Arctic route linking Russia to Canada, and the Northern Sea Route (NSR) trails the Russian coast from the Bering Strait to the East, to the Kara Sea to the West.
The main difference between the NSR and the NEP is that the latter comprises the Barents Sea and provides access to the port of Murmansk, the largest Russian Arctic port, and to the Atlantic. Given that the NSR constitutes the majority of the NEP, some sources use the terms NSR and NEP interchangeably.
Current situation
The navigability of arctic sea routes depends primarily on the expanse of the floe, since it prevents naval traffic for a part of the year. The fluctuation of the area covered by sea ice determines the time windows during which ships can pass through. The NWP encounters thick multiyear ice, complex straits, and pingos that make navigation especially challenging. The eastern routes Northeast Passage and Northern Sea Route have experienced a higher level of activity compared to the Northwest Passage.
The NEP is relatively easier owing to lower overall ice extent and open water in the Barents Sea. Unlike similar latitudes in Alaska or in Canada, this area remains ice-free due to currents of warm water from the Gulf Stream, feeding into the North Atlantic. For both the NSR and NEP, in summer months the sea ice recedes more quickly compared to the NWP area. This characteristic has become more notable since the early 2000s due to successive low-records of ice age, thickness and extension. Nonetheless, the NEP remains inaccessible for a large part of the year, since in the Laptev Sea and Kara Sea, through which the NEP passes, the minimum risk of non-passage over the whole year is respectively 17% and 15%.
The Transpolar Sea Route remains a mostly unused route as ships going through it must traverse a permanent sea ice sheet, requiring advanced ice breaking capabilities. The TSR was only accessible 10 days in 2010, with icebreaker type vessels, and those 10 days were still considered as unsafe.
Future projections
Various projections indicate that the ice floe will greatly diminish in the future, and might even disappear by the end of the century. The depletion of the arctic ice is already visible. On average over a year, the ice floe has diminished by 4.3% every ten years. However, this reduction is not uniform over the entire year. Indeed, if we observe only the month of September, the ice floe has diminished by 10.7% every ten years, compared to only 2.8% in March. Projection models of the evolution of the arctic ice floe are based on the last 30 years. These projections mainly use circulation models of ocean and atmospheric currents, such as NEMO, the OGCM and the CMIP. They also take into account the evolution of greenhouse gases, such as CO2.
The NSR may be ice free by 2030, earlier than NWP or TSR. Models predict that in that year 90% of the current area of ice will remain in winter, and only 60% in September. In 2060, they forecast that these numbers will decrease to 85% and 40% respectively. Finally, in 2090, they anticipate 85% in winter, and less than 10% in August–September.
As a consequence of this reduction of the ice floe, the number of days of navigability on the NEP and NWP is increased, and routes such as the TSR, that are as of yet inaccessible to regular vessels, may open up. The former are for now only open for a few days during the months of August and September, but certain projections indicate that in 2030 they will be open for a whole month. In 2060, the NEP will be open from August to October, and the NWP during August and September. Finally, in 2090, both passages will be open at least three months in a year. Certain projections even say that the NEP will be accessible five months per year.
However, all these projections remain uncertain since global warming is accelerating, and could have unexpected consequences on climatic conditions such as the perturbation of winds and ocean currents.