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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Clim.
Sec. Climate Action
Volume 6 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fclim.2024.1426679
Projected changes to Arctic shipping routes after stratospheric aerosol deployment in the ARISE-SAI scenarios
Provisionally accepted- 1 Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States
- 2 Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, United States
Rapid reductions in Arctic sea ice in response to warming have led to increased interest in using the Arctic Ocean for commercial shipping. As the world warms, however, different strategies are being considered to stabilize or reduce surface temperatures in order to prevent critical climate change impacts. One such strategy is stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), a form of solar climate intervention. Projected changes to Arctic sea ice under SAI with specific regards to shipping have not yet been assessed. We compare output from two SAI simulations that have different global mean temperature targets with a non-SAI control simulation to provide the first assessment of Arctic Ocean navigability under potential SAI scenarios. We find that sea ice concentration and thickness quickly stabilize or increase after SAI deployment. When sea ice thickness stabilizes in response to SAI, the number of days when the Arctic Ocean is navigable remains fairly constant, but increasing sea ice thickness leads to reduced navigability compared to the non-SAI simulation. From 2035-2069, both the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route are accessible from July-November in all three simulations, but there are no navigable routes under either SAI scenario from April-June. When the Arctic is navigable, it can take 2-12 days longer to cross the Arctic Ocean in the SAI simulations than in the non-SAI control simulation, and there are large year-to-year variations in travel time. Overall, Arctic shipping may take longer and be more difficult in an SAI vs a non-SAI world because of relatively thicker sea ice, but the degree to which Arctic shipping may change in response to SAI is dependent on the particular climate intervention strategy.
Keywords: sea ice, climate intervention, Climate Change, shipping, Stratospheric aerosol injection, Arctic
Received: 01 May 2024; Accepted: 26 Aug 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Morrison, Pathak, Barnes and Hurrell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ariel L. Morrison, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States
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