From the University of Delaware – As the ice-capped Arctic Ocean warms, ship traffic will increase at the top of the world. And if the sea ice continues to decline, a new route connecting international trading partners may emerge — but not without significant repercussions to climate, according to a U.S. and Canadian research team that includes a University of Delaware scientist.
Growing Arctic ship traffic will bring with it air pollution that has the potential to accelerate climate change in the world’s northern reaches. And it’s more than a greenhouse gas problem — engine exhaust particles could increase warming by some 17-78 percent, the researchers say.
James J. Corbett, professor of marine science and policy at UD, is a lead author of the first geospatial approach to evaluating the potential impacts of shipping on Arctic climate. The study, “Arctic Shipping Emissions Inventories and Future Scenarios,” is published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
Corbett’s coauthors include Daniel A. Lack, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.; James J. Winebrake, of the Rochester Institute of Technology; Susie Harder of Transport Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia; Jordan A. Silberman of GIS Consulting in Unionville, Pa.; and Maya Gold of the Canadian Coast Guard in Ottawa, Ontario.
“One of the most potent ‘short-lived climate forcers’ in diesel emissions is black carbon, or soot,” says Corbett, who is on the faculty of UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. “Ships operating in or near the Arctic use advanced diesel engines that release black carbon into one of the most sensitive regions for climate change.”
Produced by ships from the incomplete burning of marine fuel, these tiny particles of carbon act like ‘heaters’ because they absorb sunlight — both directly from the sun, and reflected from the surface of snow and ice. Other particles released by ship engines also rank high among important short-lived climate forcers, and this study estimates their combined global warming impact potential.
To better understand the potential impact of black carbon and other ship pollutants on climate, including carbon dioxide, methane and ozone, the research team produced high-resolution (5-kilometer-by-5-kilometer) scenarios that account for growth in shipping in the region through 2050, and also outline potential new Arctic shipping routes.
Among the research team’s most significant findings:
- Global warming potential in 2030 in the high-growth scenario suggests that short-lived forcing of ~4.5 gigagrams of black carbon from Arctic shipping may increase the global warming potential due to ships’ carbon dioxide emissions (~42,000 gigagrams) by some 17-78 percent.
- Ship traffic diverting from current routes to new routes through the Arctic is projected to reach 2 percent of global traffic by 2030 and to 5 percent in 2050. In comparison, shipping volumes through the Suez and Panama canals currently account for about 4 percent and 8 percent of global trade volume, respectively.
- A Northwest Passage and Northeast Passage through the Arctic Ocean would provide a distance savings of about 25 percent and 50 percent, respectively, with coincident time and fuel savings. However, the team says tradeoffs from the short-lived climate forcing impacts must be studied.
- To calculate possible benefits of policy action, the study provides “maximum feasible reduction scenarios” that take into account the incorporation of emissions control technologies such as seawater scrubbers that absorb sulfur dioxide emitted during the burning of diesel fuel. Their scenario shows that with controls, the amount of Arctic black carbon from shipping can be reduced in the near term and held nearly constant through 2050.
“To understand the value of addressing short-lived climate forcers from shipping, you need to know the impacts of these emissions, the feasibility and availability of technologies that could be put in place to reduce these impacts, and then engage the policy-making community to debate the evidence and agree on a plan,” Corbett notes. “Our hope is that this study will enable better communication of emerging science with policy makers and aid the eight Arctic Council nations with climate policy.”
Corbett also has led recent studies to determine the global health effects of shipping, and more recently, a comparison of the daily release of oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Americans’ daily energy use.
Very simple solution – install nuclear reactors on merchant ships which navigate the Arctic.
From memory, nuclear power equates to an oil price of approx. $170 / barrel. If the journey distance is halved, the fuel usage will also halve. Using nuclear power for a journey which is 50% shorter is equivalent to paying $170 * 50% = $85 / barrel of oil for the original journey – a cost which is competitive with existing oil prices.
But it gets better. The profitability of a ship is strongly influenced by the passage time. Given a fixed rate of freight transport, halving the journey time doubles the amount of freight each ship can carry, because each ship can carry two ship loads of freight on the new polar route, in the time it took the original ship to carry one load of freight via the traditional route.
Of course, there might also be a saving from not having to pay premium port rates for fuel – nuclear ships could go for years without needing refueling, so ship owners would no longer be held hostage by monopoly fuel prices at popular destinations.
Best of all, the design problems for nuclear powered merchant ships have already been worked out – Russia already operates a fleet of nuclear powered civilian Icebreakers, to keep their waterways open. If the ice melts, and Russia doesn’t need as many icebreakers anymore, it might even be possible to convert some of these ships to merchant use – they’re certainly big enough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_powered_icebreaker
All this assumes the Arctic ice actually melts, of course 😉
So does the annual commercial shipping in the Baltic melt the ice?
With GPS who needs buoys?
Seems the Canadian Ice road is a myth, all those diesel fumes melt the ice.
Reality where art thy sting
Premature fairy tales do no good to nobody. Nobody has a clue what sea ice will be like in 20 or 50 years, more? less? beginning of an ice age? And what about “repercussion on climate” climate punished? Why even think of an ice free arctic, a terraformed planet mars, or Arsenal making champion of the premier league? “What if?” is not science, “what is?” is!
If you follow the link to the abstract, you’ll see the paper’s authors talk about 4.5 gigagrams of soot, not gigatons. Someone on WUWT has maybe made a transcription error?
I don’t see that is going to be a problem since the whole thing starts out with “If the Arctic Ocean continues to warm….”.
Not worth getting worked up about until there is evidence of continuing Arctic warming.
The “Red Diversion” was used by the Russians before 1902 to shift their fleet to the Far East – where it got creamed by The Japanese in 1903 🙁
“Someone on WUWT has maybe made a transcription error?”
No, it says “gigatons” in the UD press-release. A beautiful example of “press-release science”. By the way who has ever heard of “gigagrams”? But it sure sounds bigger than megatons. Will we have teramilligrams next?
Exactly. So what’s the point of the article? More fear-mongering and rent-seeking, and never mind the logic.
Of course, the likelihood that the Arctic ice will melt enough for significant freighter traffic is vanishingly remote. So if the polar-passage routes are so much better, it would make more sense to create a lot black carbon and coat the ice every spring, to open up the sea lanes. We could even start now (cue a Popular Science article). How much black carbon would it take?
Now that’s a study that might make sense.
/Mr Lynn
Soot from space tourism rockets could spur climate change
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2010/2010-34.shtml
Soot ahoy…
Also they’re evacuating around this potentially large erupting volcano. Merapi
http://bigthink.com/ideas/24664
And the Vikings can re-establish residency on Greenland and grow crops again!
You know, all good stories end up in remakes. The children’s stories fondly known as “Chicken Little” and “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” will one day be retold in ways that new generations can relate to. I’m predicting they will center around our current crop of corner Jeremiahs and their “Our World Is Coming To An End” journalistic placards. This particular version is right up there competing for the top spot in my mind.
The stalled melting of the Arctic had better get moving or else run the risk of being lapsed by ever more strident stories of its end.
Say, Isn’t there a big risk in counting ones chickens before they have hatched? “If the sea ice continues to decline”,”If the Arctic Ocean continues to warm”,”could further accelerate warming.” That poor fool Harper is even committing millions to infrastructure for the coming “warm age”. And what happens “if” it never happens as planned? Idiot fools.
The Gray Monk says:
October 25, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Here’s the fly in the oceanic transport ointment:
Global Trade makes its money by shipping things vast distances, the further they ship and the more they ship, the more money they make. Most places on Earth could do without the overabundance of transoceanic shipping by using sources dispersed much closer to the market.
Global Trade for the sake of Global Trade Profits is grossly inefficient.
I wonder whether soot caused the following?
There appear to be multiple factors that may have contributed to a decline in Arctic Sea Ice over the last 30 years including;
1. Wind;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100427111449.htm
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/307/5707/203a
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/22/wind-sea-ice-loss-arctic
2. Soot/Black Carbon;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100728092617.htm
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2010/2010-20.shtml
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report: http://www.pame.is/images/stories/PDF_Files/AMSA_2009_Report_2nd_print.pdf
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 5;
“Black carbon emissions from ships operating in the Arctic may have
regional impacts by accelerating ice melt.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 142;
Black carbon is a component of particulate matter produced by marine vessels through the incomplete oxidation of diesel fuel. The release and deposition of BC in the Arctic region is of particular concern because of the effect it has on reducing the albedo (reflectivity) of sea ice and snow. When solar radiation is applied, reduced albedo increases the rate of ice and snow melt significantly, resulting in more open water, and thereby reducing the regional albedo further. In the Arctic region in 2004, approximately 1,180 metric tons of black carbon was released, representing a small proportion of the estimated 71,000 to 160,000 metric tons released around the globe annually. However, the region-specific effects of black carbon indicate that even small amounts could have a potentially disproportionate impact on ice melt and warming in the region. More research is needed to determine the level of impact this could have on ice melt acceleration in the Arctic and the potential benefits from limiting ships’ BC emissions when operating near to or in ice-covered regions. The potential impacts of black carbon should also be a point of consideration when weighing the costs and benefits of using in-situ burning of oil in spill response situations.”
3. Potentially the non-Black Carbon/Soot based impact of Ship Traffic including Supply/Bulk Shipping, Fishing, Passenger/Cruise Ships and Icebreakers:
http://www.pame.is/images/stories/PDF_Files/AMSA_2009_Report_2nd_print.pdf
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 4;
“There were approximately 6,000 individual vessels, many making multiple voyages, in the Arctic region during the AMSA survey year; half of these were operating on the Great Circle Route in the North Pacific that crosses the Aleutian Islands. Of the 6,000 vessels reported, approximately 1,600 were fishing vessels.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Pages 141 – 142;
“The AMSA has developed the world’s first activity-based estimate of Arctic marine shipping emissions using empirical data for shipping reported by Arctic Council member states. Emissions were calculated for each vessel-trip for which data was available for the base year 2004. The 515,000 trips analyzed represent about 14.2 million km of distance traveled (or 7.7 million nautical miles) by transport vessels; fishing vessels represent over 15,000 fishing vessel days at sea for 2004. Some results could be an underestimation of current emissions, given potential underreporting bias and anecdotal reports of recent growth in international shipping and trade through the Arctic.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report on Page 79;
“A specific example of where cruise ship traffic is increasing at a rapid rate is off the coast of Greenland. As Table 5.3 shows, cruise ship visits and the number of passengers visiting Greenland has increased significantly between 2003 and 2008. For example, between 2006 and 2007, port calls into Greenland increased from 157 to 222 cruise ships. The number of port calls in 2006 combined for a total of 22,051 passengers, a number that represents nearly half of Greenland’s total 2006 population of 56,901.
In 2008, approximately 375 cruise ship port calls were scheduled for Greenland ports and harbors, more than double the number of port calls seen in 2006.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 137;
“The 2004 U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy reported that, while at sea, the average cruise-ship passenger generates about eight gallons of sewage per day and an average cruise ship can generate a total of 532,000 to 798,000 liters of sewage and 3.8 million liters of wastewater from sinks, showers and laundries each week, as well as large amounts of solid waste (garbage). The average cruise ship will also produce more than 95,000 liters of oily bilge water from engines and machinery a week. Sewage, solid waste and oily bilge water release are regulated through MARPOL. There are no restrictions on the release of treated wastewater.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 84;
“During 2004-2008, there were 33 icebreaker transits to the North Pole for science and tourism. An increasing number of icebreakers and research vessels are conducting geological and geophysical research throughout the central Arctic Ocean related to establishing the limits of the extended continental shelf under UNCLOS.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 84;
“Map 5.6 demonstrates the surge in vessel activity in the summer season, when all of the community re-supply takes place and most bulk commodities are shipped out and supplies brought in for commercial operations. Summer is also the season when all of the passenger and cruise vessels travel to the region.”
and Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 160;
“Spring break-up to mark the start of summer navigation will vary and, as happens now in more southerly seas, shippers eager to start work will test the limits of their vessels in ice.”
Given all of the non-CO2 based factors that may have impacted Arctic Sea Ice, can anyone point to a study that has attempted to isolate how much, if any, of the decline in Arctic Sea Ice over the last 30 years;
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.png
can be attributed to CO2?
If Black Carbon is so good at melting ice, why don’t we use it in place of Mag Chloride?
Reading between lots of lines in various press releases it melts ice regardless of the ambient air temp. It can’t damage vehicles and concrete any worse than Mag Chloride…
/sarc
The reason ships would go through the arctic is that it’s much shorter. Therefore, they would burn less fuel and emit less CO2.
What about the damage to Arctic sea ice through routine encroachment by: submarines and other naval vessels; scientific researchers; cruise ships; commercial activities, including oil exploration; global warming propagandists; “explorers”; record breakers; TV nature programmers; etc, etc?
Follow up to part of my above post.
Merapi erupts on a tragic day for Indonesia
http://bigthink.com/ideas/24670
Merapi has produced some VEI-4± in the holocene.
Grimsvotn seems still on schedule for April. Its a big erupter, and Etna will have a large eruption within the next few years. Elbrus is a big wild one getting hot on top.
I don’t trust any science that use the term “Policy Makers” unless the “Policy Makers” are the subject of the study.
Rick Lynch
October 26, 2010 at 7:18 am
The reason ships would go through the arctic is that it’s much shorter. Therefore, they would burn less fuel and emit less CO2.
#
Hey, you can’t say that. It’s contra-narrative.
MostlyHarmless (October 26, 2010 at 1:50 am),
Thanks for pointing out that the BC figure in the article by the University of Delaware is grossly wrong.
Right, a mistake was made by someone in transcribing gigagrams to gigatons, but not by anyone at all at WUWT.
Nevertheless, the figure og ~4.5 gigatons has taken on a life of its own and is quite well liked by the usual alarmist or media organizations. A search for “short-lived forcing of ~4.5 gigatons of black carbon from Arctic shipping” on the Internet provide links to ten articles. That figure will probably increase as time goes by.
The media organizations I checked appear to credit (as does WUWT) the University of Delaware with the article that contains the so-attractive figure of ~4.5 gigatons, although I wonder whether a more correct figure of ~4,500 metric tonnes or even ~4.5 kilo metric ton would have made much difference. One figure they would not have used is ~4.5 gigagrams expressed (correctly) as 0.0000045 giga metric ton; but what is an error of a half a dozen orders of magnitude amongst climate-alarmist friends?
It is not appropriate to blame “someone at WUWT” for the transcription error. The error originated with the University of Delaware. I guess it was wrong of WUWT to accept at face value what a university had to say about the research done by its employees, but it is a good thing that the error got caught in this discussion thread. WUWT deserves full credit for that.
WUWT still is and remains the best place to find the truth about climate science.
The truth in this case is that, as MostlyHarmless illustrated so beautifully, a pencil-dot-worth of black carbon per square metre is nothing to worry about when it comes to global or arctic warming. Anyone who figures that we have to worry about that needs to get a different life.
“Ships operating in or near the Arctic use advanced diesel engines that release black carbon into one of the most sensitive regions for climate change.”
WT? The word “Advanced” when applied to engines tends to indicate higher efficiency which in the case of diesels means more complete burning of fuel.
I think they are making this stuff up as they go along.
Jerry
October 26, 2010 at 5:38 am
The “Red Diversion” was used by the Russians before 1902 to shift their fleet to the Far East – where it got creamed by The Japanese in 1903 🙁
#
This history might have played a part in the acceptance of the decision of the Emperor of Japan, to surrender to the US. I have read speculation that some Japanese officers feared vengeance from Stalin’s USSR over this.
Just move the exhaust under the ship /sarc.