AARoads Forum

Non-Road Boards => Off-Topic => Weather => Topic started by: Grzrd on January 03, 2012, 02:50:20 PM

Title: Growing Arctic Ocean Shipping Routes
Post by: Grzrd on January 03, 2012, 02:50:20 PM
If indeed the Northern Hemisphere is in a warming phase (whether anthropogenic or not, no need to go down that political thicket), it appears that some countries and companies are already making increased usage of the short Arctic Ocean connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1108138--russia-pulling-ahead-in-the-arctic

"...Siberians are more realistically enthusiastic about the Northern Sea Route, which offers a direct sea-link from the Atlantic to the Pacific and has, because of climate change, already become seasonally ice-free. Hundreds of ships used the waterway last summer to transport natural resources from Russian ports to Asian and European markets.
South Korean shipyards are building dozens of ice-strengthened cargo vessels that will extend the shipping season beyond the summer months, '"while the Russian government is building new icebreakers to escort ships through in convoys..."

I know very little about freight transport, but I wonder if increased warming/Arctic Ocean shipping would ultimately affect freight transport by rail and truck in the U.S. through lessening a need for U.S. overland freight transport as an intermediate step between Asia and Europe.
Title: Re: Growing Arctic Ocean Shipping Routes
Post by: Stephane Dumas on January 03, 2012, 03:15:12 PM
Churchill in Manitoba on the Hudson Bay could play a more important role since it have a railroad link it with the Prairies and Manitoba DOT plan an all-weather road connecting Churchill, inland part of the Nunavut (formely known the Keewatin district) with Thompson MB. http://www.arcticbridge.com/

Then there another factor to add: if and when the Bering Strait Bridge or Tunnel came to fruitition. Maybe that project might influence the sort of some of the shipping routes.