Fewer Ships Traveled Arctic in 2014
The year 2014 has proved to be a chilly one for Arctic shipping. Just 31 ships sailed between Europe and Asia across the Northern Sea Route, and 22 did part of the route, according to an Alaska Public Radio Network report. That’s down from a total of more than 70 in 2013.
Thirty-one ships used the Northern Sea Route over Russia to sail between Europe and Asia and another 22 used part of the route, Alaska Public Radio Network reported. Last year, 70 vessels used the Northern Sea Route.
Malte Humpert, executive director of the Arctic Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, says this year has served as a reality check on some of the over-heated Arctic predictions of recent years.
“I think 2014 kind of shows that development and Arctic shipping may be further off than we might have thought a few years ago, that the ice is not melting as quickly as previously predicted,” he said.
Low sea ice years of 2007 and 2012 generated optimism about Arctic resource extraction, container shipping and large-scale tourism, he said. More ice formed in 2014, and the nature of shipping changed. Russia is feeling the effect of economic sanctions stemming from its move on Ukraine, and that has scaled back Russian oil activity. Low oil prices also were a factor, he added.
Joël Plouffe, a Montreal-based managing editor of the journal Arctic Yearbook, said access remains limited and development is expensive in the Arctic. "This is the reality. The boom is not there. And whatever will happen will take years and years and years," he said.
Both Plouffe and Humpert say climate change is transforming the Arctic, even if the pace of its impact on shipping has been over-hyped at times.
