The Arctic is experiencing some of the most rapid climate changes on earth. On average, the temperature has risen at approximately twice the rate of the rest of the world. Melting glaciers, reductions in the extent and thickness of sea ice, thawing permafrost and rising sea levels are indications of recent warming of the region.
The ice extent in the Arctic declined by 50-55% from September 1979 to September 2007. Although the September ice cover has increased from 2007 to 2009, an acceleration of the climate trends is projected to occur over the next few decades. The ice thickness is predicted to decrease along with the reduced ice cover.
The Arctic holds approximately 240 bboe of known oil and gas reserves. Most of the known reserves are in Russia and approximately 85% is gas. Only a minor fraction of the Russian resources have been produced. The US Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated the unproven reserves in the Arctic, onshore and offshore, to be 412 bboe. In addition to hydrocarbons, the continents surrounding the Arctic Ocean hold large quantities of other raw materials, such as minerals and timber, that may be exploited if the Arctic grows warmer and has less sea ice.
Although the trend for winter has not been as striking as that for summer (about 3% during the 1979-2009 period) and the ice extent has increased during the last three winters, it is widely assumed that the melting of Arctic sea ice may effectively unlock the Arctic Ocean area, leaving it increasingly open to human activities. In particular, this has encouraged speculation that the Arctic Ocean may open as a shipping lane. This possibility, combined with the expectation that much of the undiscovered oil and gas reserves are located here, has led to rapidly increasing interest in the Arctic’s development potential.
The possibility of extended Arctic operational seasons raises several issues. One is how economical it will be to replace the traditional trade routes between Europe and North America on the one hand and Europe and Asia on the other, another is the requirements for all- or part-year sailing across the Arctic Ocean in terms of the ships’ ice class. Other questions relate to travel time, fuel consumption and regularity. Will more open water lead to higher waves and increased marine icing? For oil and gas developments, the effect on available windows for exploration, changing design ice loads and the use of ice management are of interest.
To address some of these issues, DNV initiated an internal project called POLARCROSS in 2008. The aim of the POLARCROSS project is to study how future changes in ice conditions may affect petroleum and shipping activities in the far north. A scenario approach has been used, in which ice information has been extracted from one of the climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in order to define ice cover and thickness scenarios for the years 2030 and 2050. The scenarios have been used to estimate ice class requirements for, and the potential economics of, container ships crossing the Arctic Ocean, as well as the increase in emissions of greenhouse gases in the Arctic if the trade between Asia and Europe shifts from the traditional southern routes to across the North Pole. The latter will be used to see if there are changes in the radiative forcing when the emissions occur at high rather than low to middle latitudes.
DNVRI has developed a Ship Ice Transit Simulator, ICETRANS, to calculate the transit times for vessels trading in ice-covered waters. Detailed ice information is needed as input to the simulator, which is still under development. The plans are to extend ICETRANS to also include estimates of the power requirements, fuel consumption, emissions and transportation efficiency of most vessel types in various ice conditions. Furthermore, the ice maps will be supplemented with data on the size and frequency of ice ridges to produce more realistic conditions.
POLARCROSS is carried out in cooperation with national and international institutes. A panel of internationally recognised experts on ice and climate change was used to select the future ice data and establish the scenarios. The simulator is being developed in close cooperation with Norwegian and Finnish experts.