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Operating megaships in confined waterways has already been shown to be difficult. Stacking them high with containers doesn’t help: it can lead the vessels to catch the wind and become even harder to control, which may have played a role in the Ever Given’s grounding.

When caught in a storm on open seas, such ships may also be more prone to losing containers overboard. According to recent analysis, at least five of the largest class of container ship lost containers during this year’s winter storm season in the Pacific.

5 Re-Designing Shipping Routes by Minimizing the Impacts of Sea Fog

Can we reduce the delays by detouring from some sea fog regions? We re-optimize the Route-I using a cost function that considers the change of the cruising speeds under different sea-fog and sea-ice conditions. The cost function is minimized with respect to the sailing time. Thus, the new route, referred to as Route-F, has the shortest sailing time (GEF-UNDP-IMO GloMEEP Project and members of the GIA, 2020) (Text S4 and Figure S7 in Supporting Information S1). Based on the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble means of sea ice and the SFF, we compute the path and the sailing time of the Route-F every 10 years in 21st century under both RCPs.

Cost savings are closely linked to the origin-destination pair. While a trip from Murmansk to Yokohama is significantly shorter (by 7 days) along the NSR, a trip to Shanghai is not (2 days).16) For some routes, e.g. from Rotterdam to Singapore or Hong Kong, it is actually shorter to sail through the Suez Canal.

As mentioned in Part 2, the world’s major container lines call on a number of ports and optimize their routes along ports that offer developed communication lines into the hinterlands, e.g. river transport and railroads, to distribute goods to customers and consumers. Since the NSR passes through mostly uninhabited territory no such stopovers are possible, strongly reducing the route’s attractiveness for regular liner service operators. In addition, more than 50 percent of trade between Europe and Far East passes through the port of Singapore, for which the NSR does not offer any time or distance savings.17) Hence, only goods that are shipped from point to point, e.g. crude oil, natural gas, and ore, and along certain routes pairs will benefit from shorter distances.

By now the impacts of supply chain disruption are becoming all too familiar: shortages, inflation, factory closures, goods waiting at ports to be unloaded. All these impacts are serious enough, but another more-hidden concern lurks just beneath the surface: the impact of supply chain failure on national security, broadly defined as a nation's ability to protect and ensure the well-being of its population.

This definition of “national security” is broader than just the defense industry or military-related efforts; it also could encompass the very ability of a nation to ensure economic well-being, public health, and protection of a nation's key infrastructure. Supply chain disruptions cause general economic disruption and key commodity shortages, which then in turn can, in fact, drive aggressive national behavior and international instability. And ironically, this reactive aggressive national behavior can happen even if the health of a national economy itself depends upon continued international economic interdependence. Indeed, this very interdependence can create vulnerabilities. So a systematic effort, cutting across agencies and public and private sectors, could be one way to ensure these vulnerabilities are understood and mitigated.

CAIRO — When the Ever Given — one of the largest container ships ever built, more sideways skyscraper than boat — got stuck in the Suez Canal for six days in March, it dammed up worldwide shipping and froze nearly $10 billion in trade a day.

For the internet, it was a bottomlessly amusing spectacle. For global shipping, it was a worst-nightmare lesson in the perils of a new breed of mega-freighter operating in tight spaces.

Another critical consequence of melting ice in the Arctic? The potential for shorter, more eco-friendly maritime trade routes that bypass the Russian-controlled Northern Sea Route.

In a new study, a pair of climate scientists at Brown University worked with a legal scholar at the University of Maine School of Law to predict how Arctic Ocean ice melt could affect the regulation of shipping routes over the next few decades. They projected that by 2065, the Arctic's navigability will increase so greatly that it could yield new trade routes in international waters -- not only reducing the shipping industry's carbon footprint but also weakening Russia's control over trade in the Arctic.

Receding sea ice creates opportunities for economic exploitation and geopolitical tension

The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet and could be free of summer sea ice by 2035. This would open up a region with vast natural resources and unrealised trade routes.

In the recently published IPCC AR6 report of Working Group II, broadly speaking, there are three narratives in which existential threat or risk is explicitly used (IPCC 2022): (i) sea-level rise posing an existential threat to Small Island States and low-lying coasts; (ii) Loss and Damage, in line with the analysis and discourse mentioned above for the IPCC SR15; (iii) relocation which can pose existential threats to sense of place, identity, and citizenship.

The IPCC AR5 introduced the concept of key risks that can potentially have severe adverse consequences for humans and socio-ecological systems (Oppenheimer et al. 2014). Criteria for identifying key risks include probability, timing, magnitude, systems affected and irreversibility of corresponding risks, and limitations to reduce risks through mitigation and adaptation (O’Neill et al. 2017). Notably, none of these key risks reaches a level where human civilization would be threatened, as it would be by GCR. The key risks were also intended to inform the Reasons for Concern (RFC), which are probably the risks treated in current and past IPCC reports that have the strongest resemblance to (sensu GCR).

It is hard to imagine more devastating effects of climate change than the fires that have been raging in California, Oregon, and Washington, or the procession of hurricanes that have approached – and, at times, ravaged – the Gulf Coast. There have also been deadly heat waves in India, Pakistan, and Europe, and devastating flooding in Southeast Asia. But there is far worse ahead, with one risk, in particular, so great that it alone threatens humanity itself: the rapid depletion of Arctic sea ice.

Recalling an Alfred Hitchcock movie, this climate “bomb” – which, at a certain point, could more than double the rate of global warming – has a timer that is being watched with growing anxiety. Each September, the extent of Arctic sea ice reaches its lowest level, before the lengthening darkness and falling temperatures cause it to begin to expand again. At this point, scientists compare its extent to previous years.

Today’s world is extremely interconnected. Most of us take this fact for granted, but its implications cannot be overstated. The rate at which information, resources, and people are able to move from one part of the world to another continues to accelerate at an alarming rate. Undoubtedly, this development has done society immense good. In the last century, global life expectancy has doubled, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has dropped by about 60%, and world literacy rates have increased by a similar margin. But while these statistics paint a promising picture of human civilization, human progress rests on a fragile foundation of international cooperation; the challenges presented by an interconnected world are immense. War, natural disasters, and economic collapse now exert their effects globally, creating economic and ecological disasters and mass human migrations on an unprecedented scale. And with the US pulling out of major multilateral agreements on trade, climate change mitigation, and denuclearization, you might wonder if our ability to collaborate across borders productively is really up to the task.

Global challenges require global solutions, and global solutions require collaboration between countries both big and small, rich and poor, authoritative and democratic. There are few human enterprises capable of providing continuity across these differences, and as technological solutions are becoming available to some of our most pressing issues, two in particular will be necessary to getting the job done: science and diplomacy. While science has long been utilized as a means to reach political ends—think of British explorer James Cook’s mapping of unexplored continents or the United States’ Manhattan Project—a more formal integration of scientists into the diplomatic process is being undertaken. This effort, which has led to scientists and academics playing a direct role in foreign policy development and international relations, has given birth of a new branch of diplomacy: science diplomacy.

Given the likely economic and military impacts of cable breaks, the ability to threaten or protect submarine cables and their shore landings will be increasingly important in future conflicts. In a crisis, an aggressor could use multiple coordinated attacks on cables to compel an opponent to back down or employ them as part of an opening offensive to cut off the defender’s military forces from national commanders, intelligence data, and sensor information. Cable attacks could also be highly destabilizing, since they could prevent a nuclear-armed opponent from controlling and monitoring its strategic weapons and early-warning systems. In response, the country targeted could choose to place its nuclear weapons in a higher alert condition – or initiate a preemptive attack.

As the ice cover is lost, a trans-polar route is opening to connect east Asia to Europe and the eastern coast of North America. And the ice barrier that once protected Russia’s northern shore will be exposed as never before. Russia represents 53% of the Arctic coastline and the need to protect its northern border as the ice barrier melts is a key national security concern.

Vladimir Putin already had ambitious plans for the northern sea route, seeking to more than double the cargo traffic. But over the past six years, Russia has also built 475 military sites along its northern border. The port of Severomorsk, on the Kola peninsula, is the base of the country’s northern fleet. In recent years, the Russians have reactivated 50 Soviet outposts in the Arctic and equipped its northern fleet with nuclear and conventional missiles.

Most of America’s historic foreign policy blunders were driven by threat inflation. From fake attacks on ships in Havana Harbor or the Gulf of Tonkin, to falling dominos in Southeast Asia and WMD in Iraq — the response to these “dire threats” is often a costly quagmire. In the Cold War it was phony bomber and missile “gaps” that sparked a precarious and ultimately pointless nuclear confrontation. Today a new “icebreaker gap” could fuel an Arctic arms race.

For over a decade, defense hawks have been sounding the alarm about Russia’s supposed “militarization” and “dominance” of the Arctic. More recently, China has joined the list of “aggressors” allegedly threatening vital Western economic and strategic interests in the High North. The Obama administration resisted calls for a major Arctic buildup coming from a mix of armchair analysts, defense contractors, and special political interests. Notably, the U.S. Navy has never joined this chorus. Nobody denies , but these are for Coast Guard missions — not the remote warfighting scenarios hyped by Arctic hawks. Theirs is classic threat inflation, built on equal parts exaggeration and ignorance, that makes it irresistible to a Trump administration happy to overturn yet another Obama legacy. And so, with a recent series of provocative words and deeds, America’s Arctic policy has taken an abruptly belligerent turn.

Competition and disagreements between Arctic states are likely to continue. This is “normal” within the international system. Although overly optimistic rhetoric related to “Arctic exceptionalism” may have set up false expectations that the post-Cold War Circumpolar North would be entirely cooperative, this is unrealistic. Seeing every point of friction as a portend that the Arctic regime is unravelling, or misreading every investment in defence and security as an indicator of revisionist designs for the region, tends to perpetuate a bifurcated debate between so-called “realists” and “liberal internationalists” predicated on empirically skewed foundations. Strategic rivalry between Russia and the West (including Canada) may have “spill over” effects on circumpolar security, but we maintain that there is little likelihood of conflict between Arctic states generated by Arctic resources, boundary disputes, or governance issues.84 Similarly, Russian and Canadian investments in defence and security capabilities in the Arctic, when appropriately contextualized, do not fit the criteria for an Arctic “arms race.”

Canada’s June 2017 defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged,” reiterates longstanding images of the Arctic as a region undergoing massive change. “The Arctic region represents an important international crossroads where issues of climate change, international trade, and global security meet,” the policy describes. Rather than promoting a narrative of inherent competition or impending conflict, however, the narrative points out that “Arctic states have long cooperated on economic, environmental, and safety issues, particularly through the Arctic Council, the premier body for cooperation in the region. All Arctic states have an enduring interest in continuing this productive collaboration.” This last sentence suggests that Russia (described elsewhere in the policy document as a state “willing to test the international security environment” that had reintroduced “a degree of major power competition”) does not inherently threaten Arctic stability given its vested interests in the region. Accordingly, the drivers of Arctic change cited in Canada’s policy emphasize the rise of security and safety challenges rather than conventional defence threats, thus confirming the line of reasoning that has become well entrenched in Canadian defence planning over the last decade.

By now the impacts of supply chain disruption are becoming all too familiar: shortages, inflation, factory closures, goods waiting at ports to be unloaded. All these impacts are serious enough, but another more-hidden concern lurks just beneath the surface: the impact of supply chain failure on national security, broadly defined as a nation's ability to protect and ensure the well-being of its population.

This definition of “national security” is broader than just the defense industry or military-related efforts; it also could encompass the very ability of a nation to ensure economic well-being, public health, and protection of a nation's key infrastructure. Supply chain disruptions cause general economic disruption and key commodity shortages, which then in turn can, in fact, drive aggressive national behavior and international instability. And ironically, this reactive aggressive national behavior can happen even if the health of a national economy itself depends upon continued international economic interdependence. Indeed, this very interdependence can create vulnerabilities. So a systematic effort, cutting across agencies and public and private sectors, could be one way to ensure these vulnerabilities are understood and mitigated.

A closer look at global value chains reveals ways that both public-sector and private-sector actors have prioritized short-term efficiency at the expense of long-term resilience. But it also reveals a mismatch between a lot of overheated political rhetoric and an actual understanding of how the global economy works. Many of the past year's issues are temporary—and when it comes to strained global supply chains, globalization is more often the solution than the problem.

When Ford completed its massive River Rouge plant in 1928, it created a factory that controlled every facet of car production, including its own steel mill. Trade volume was high during this era, but very few intermediate goods crossed borders. In the time since then, the industrial organization of production has changed a wee bit.

Researchers and shipping experts, however, remain skeptical about the commercial viability of the NSR. Canadian and American maritime experts say two percent of global shipping could be diverted to the Arctic by 2030, reaching 5 percent by 2050. Experts cite a number of factors which may determine the future growth of shipping in the Arctic. This series about the Northern Sea Route will explore how global trade dynamics and world trade patterns, the severity and speed of ice decline, fuel cost savings and transit fees, Russia’s Arctic natural resources development, and the emergence of China, South Korea and Japan as Arctic maritime nations, may influence the development of the NSR.

DUBAI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A project to expand parts of the Suez Canal is expected to be completed after two years of work in July 2023, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said on Sunday.

The SCA announced accelerated plans to extend a second channel of the canal and to enlarge an existing channel after the Ever Given container ship ran aground and blocked the waterway for six days last year.

Besides triggering a new Cold War and realigning supply routes across the globe, Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 also resulted in a complete halt on shipping across the Northern Trade Route. With Western companies ostensibly concerned with European security in the wake of Putin’s destabilizing war, Chinese shipping companies are also staying away from the route. These all may potentially be geopolitical efforts to avoid American and European sanction penalties. With Russia’s international isolation deepening, the window on the Northern Sea Route’s development as a trading route may enter a dormant phase. While trade on the route survived Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, not only will trade stop on the route in the near future, but also actually last into the long term. Some analysts believe that Russia is well on its way to considerable international isolation—particularly in the realm of trade. Most of the selling point of the NSR for Russia is that it can play a vital role in facilitating the transport of goods to Europe. Yet, with European leaders already looking to drastically reduce their reliance on Russian energy, it seems unlikely that they will open the door to Kremlin-sponsored trade. Therefore, the EU’s pivot from criticism to resistance regarding Putin’s regime marks more than a temporary suspension of trade.

There are many types of ships that might take advantage of ice-free waters in the future: naval vessels, cruise ships, container ships, scientific vessels, and transport ships to offshore drilling platforms.

These ships would have to contend with myriad challenges in an increasingly ice-free Arctic. One of the most prominent is the fact that ice in the Arctic will vary drastically year to year. “Regardless of which climate change scenario path we’re on, interannual variability remained very high for a long period,” said Lynch, who led the latest PNAS study.