Projected emissions and climate impacts of Arctic shipping along the Northern Sea Route.

The navigability of Arctic maritime passages has improved with the rapid retreat of sea ice in recent decades, and it is projected that the Northern Sea Route (NSR) will support further increases in shipping in the future. However, the opening of the NSR may bring potential environmental and climate risks to the Arctic and the rest of the world. This investigation assessed shipping emissions along the NSR and the climate impacts under global warming of 2 °C and 3 °C to support coordinated international decision-making. The results show that the magnitude of annual energy consumption of ships along the NSR is 10 ⁹  kWh under global warming of 2 °C and 3 °C. The environmental impacts of the shipping decrease with fuel transition to clean, carbon-neutral fuel sources. Specifically, the maximum emission is CO ₂ (10 ⁶  t), followed by NO _X (10 ^4-5  t), CO (10 ^3-4  t), SO _X (10 ³  t), CH ₄ (10 ^2-3  t), organic carbon (10 ^2-3  t), N ₂ O (10 ^1-2  t), and black carbon (BC, 10 ^1-2  t), in which CO ₂ and BC have great difference under high and low loads. Total emission exacerbates Arctic and global warming, and it is more significant in the Arctic in the next twenty years and across the rest of the world in the next one hundred years. The greatest climate impact factor is CO ₂ , followed by NO _X and BC which are more important in global and Arctic warming, respectively.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)