NNA Track 1: Arctic impacts and reverberations of expanding global maritime trade routes
The Arctic Expansion Reverberations Website is hosted by Elise Miller-Hooks, Sara Cobb, Celso Ferreira, Thomas Ravens, Anne Garland, Jinlun Zhang and Ralph Pundt, researchers working on the U.S. National Science Foundation funded project, NNA Track 1: Arctic impacts and reverberations of expanding global maritime trade routes. The site is intended to provide resources and research outcomes that may be of use to others investigating related topics.
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Studying the Potential for Changing Global Seaborne Trade Flows as a Consequence of a Thawing Arctic Ocean
By: Elise Miller-Hooks, George Mason University; Sara Cobb, George Mason University; Celso Ferreira, George Mason University; Anne Garland, ARIES; Ralph Pundt, Maine Maritime Academy; Thomas Ravens, Consultant; and Jinlun Zhang, University of Washington
A changing climate has brought a thawing of the Arctic Ocean with increasingly viable passageways. This opening of the Arctic routes over coming years is likely to lead to a shift in the flow of cargo across world seaborne trade lanes. Our project, "NNA Track 1: Arctic impacts and reverberations of expanding global maritime trade routes," funded by the US National Science Foundation, is developing the science to make high-fidelity and high-resolution, but long-term, future forecasts of conditions along these passageways including: waves, storm surge, extreme cold, wind, visibility, risk of icing to vessels, as well as sea-ice conditions, including ice concentration, ice thickness and fractions of thin and thick ice. With these predictions we can estimate route characteristics, such as voyage duration and risk of accident for cargo vessels, characterize route shortcomings, and predict vessel flows both globally and through the region. Estimates of coastal permafrost thaw simultaneously can support the teams' work in understanding how to construct or maintain port infrastructure on a thawing permafrost foundation.