Commercial Ships Traverse Northwest Passage

September 11, 2009

As reported by the Associated Press, two German merchant ships have traversed the Northeast Passage after global warming and melting ice opened a route from South Korea along Russia's Arctic coast to Siberia. The The MV Beluga Fraternity and MV Beluga Foresight traveled from Ulsan, South Korea, in late July to Siberia by way of the Northeast Passage, a sea lane that, in years past, was avoided because of its heavy ice floes. The ships are expected to complete their journey, heading for Rotterdam in the Netherlands with 3,500 tons of construction parts.

Arve Dimmen of Norway, director of the Maritime Safety, Norwegian Coastal Adminnistration, discussed the "Arctic Challenge" at an October 2007 National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board Meeting. Accoring to Dimmen, the ice is disappearing and the Northwest Passage was free of ice in August 2007. There are two main drivers that make the Arctic area important. First, 25 percent of undiscovered oil resources are there, according to the U.S. Geological Services. Second, supertankers and large container ships can now use the passage. It shortens the time to sail between the west coast of North America and Europe, and the trip from the East Coast to Japan. The time can be shortened by as much as 30 percent.

GPS is not used north of the Arctic Circle due to coverage limitations. This can create a precision navigation problem making GPS less useful than desirable. With sparse infrastructure in the area, both in the way of harbors and navigational aides, the challenge is in the area of international cooperation — how ground-based and space-based services from all service providers can be combined. Dimmen expressed his belief that this will occur within the life span of GPS III.

A Geospatial Solutions article, Melting Makes Northwest Passage Passable, looks at the accelerated shrinking of the ice cap.

"The ice cap is at an extreme low," said Danish National Space Center's Leif Toudal Pedersen in a media statement. "In one year, the ice cover dropped by one million square kilometers to now extend to about three million square kilometers. That's about 45 percent less than the average from 1997-2000 — a reduction in size equal to Western Europe.

"Over the last 10 years the ice cover has shrunk by about 100,000 square kilometers per year on average, so a drop of one million square kilometers in just one year is extreme," he added. "The strong reduction in one year certainly raises flags that the summer ice may disappear much sooner than expected. We urgently need to understand better the processes involved."

Created from nearly 200 Envisat scenes, this Arctic mosaic reveals that the most direct route of the Northwest Passage (the orange line) across northern Canada is fully navigable. The blue line traces the Northeast Passage along the Siberian coast, which is only partially obstructed by ice.

Expedition. The Open Passage Expedition is also making its way through the Northwest Passage to draw attention to climate change, and will be providing Internet updates. Blue Sky Network’s GPS tracking and two-way messaging device is enabling the Open Passage crew to update its Twitter account with what the crew encounters during the voyage, including polar bear sightings and dangerous iceberg navigation. Blue Sky equipment also lets the crew update its blog, Flickr account, and YouTube videos from the ship.