More Arctic shipping will up local pollution: study

Soot and pollutants spew out of a ship’s funnel — in the Arctic these have the potential to accelerate warming. (FILE PHOTO)

With two to four months of ice-free conditions forecast for the Northwest Passage by 2030, scientists are now looking at what more shipping traffic will mean for the circumpolar region.

“The melting of Arctic sea-ice will effectively unlock the Arctic Ocean, leaving it increasingly open to human activity – particularly oil and gas extraction and shipping,” say scientists at the Oslo-based Center for International Climate and Environment Research, Det Norske Veritas and Statistics Norway.

As new circumpolar shipping routes open, climate-warming and polluting emissions from shipping will rise in the Arctic in places where these have never been seen before, they say in a new study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

And these have the potential to increase Arctic warming.

“The potential increase in Arctic activities and emissions will not only have an impact on the global climate, but may also impact on regional temperature trends,” they say.

Previous research suggests that ship emissions could increase warming in the Arctic — a region that’s already experiencing a higher level of warming than others.

As the location of oil and gas production moves into remote Arctic places requiring more ship transport, there will be a “rapid growth” in emissions from oil and gas transport by ship.

Arctic shipping emissions will increase faster than the global average and are expected to rise by up to 25 per cent by 2050, the scientists say.

As well, levels of ground-level ozone are expected to double or triple as Arctic shipping traffic moves away from community re-supply, fishing and tourism.

This ozone affects plants’ ability to soak up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, accelerating warming.

And it can harm lung function, and lead to premature death, asthma, bronchitis and heart attacks

Also associated with an increase in Arctic shipping is soot produced by ship exhaust. The impact of soot on the climate doesn’t last long— only up to a month at most.

But soot which originates in the Arctic has a powerful impact in the region because its tiny black particles soak up heat.

If there’s any positive news in this scenario, it’s that the majority of the transit shipping emissions will occur on the Russian side of the Arctic, the study’s lead author Glen Peters said in an email.