The impact of black carbon emissions from projected Arctic shipping on regional ice transport

Li, Xueke; Lynch, Amanda H.; Bailey, David A.; Stephenson, Scott R.; Veland, Siri

doi:10.1007/s00382-021-05814-9

Published: 18 May 2021

The impact of black carbon emissions from projected Arctic shipping on regional ice transport

Xueke Li ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6755-9229¹,
Amanda H. Lynch^1,2,
David A. Bailey³,
Scott R. Stephenson⁴ &
Siri Veland⁵

Climate Dynamics volume 57, pages 2453–2466 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

The direct and indirect effects of global emissions of black carbon (BC) on the evolution of Arctic climate has been well documented. The significance of within-Arctic emissions of BC is less certain. In light of this, an ensemble of scenarios are developed that simulate the hypothetical diversion of 75% of current and projected shipping traffic from the Suez Canal to the Northern Sea Route (NSR). This experiment shows that BC from ships results in a small change in climate forcing that does not influence the Arctic-wide trajectory of change. However, the shift in forcing from the Suez route to the NSR not only influences regional evolution of sea ice cover, but also results in regional feedbacks that in some locations amplify (e.g. Greenland Sea) and in other locations damp (e.g. Labrador Sea) the sea ice retreat under anthropogenic climate change. The primary mechanism underlying these regional effects is a shift in circulation rather than direct thermodynamic forcing. The most significant impacts are distal from the emissions sources, which is likely to have policy implications as the expansion of industrial and transportation activities into the Arctic is considered.

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Notes

Cabotage in this paper, following Gunnarsson (2013), is defined as domestic port-to-port transport by both domestic and foreign carriers.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation through Grant NNA/CNH-S 1824829: Modeling risk from variation in a coupled natural-human system at the Arctic ice edge. The authors appreciate the insightful discussions with Michael Goldstein on the motivations for and relevance of these simulations for policy and communities. There are no conflicts of interest to report for any authors on this paper, not for the colleagues we acknowledge here. Previous and current CESM versions are freely available at www.cesm.ucar.edu:/models/cesm2/. Computing and data storage resources, including the Cheyenne supercomputer (https://doi.org/10.5065/D6RX99HX), were provided by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NCAR. The CESM datasets used in this study will be made available upon acceptance of the manuscript from the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) at esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6, or from the NCAR Digital Asset Services Hub (DASH) at data.ucar.edu.

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Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
Xueke Li & Amanda H. Lynch
Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
Amanda H. Lynch
Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
David A. Bailey
RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA
Scott R. Stephenson
Department of Environment, Nordland Research Institute, PO Box 1490, 8049, Bodø, Norway
Siri Veland

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Xueke Li
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Amanda H. Lynch
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David A. Bailey
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Li, X., Lynch, A.H., Bailey, D.A. et al. The impact of black carbon emissions from projected Arctic shipping on regional ice transport. Clim Dyn 57, 2453–2466 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05814-9

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Received: 14 October 2020
Accepted: 11 May 2021
Published: 18 May 2021
Issue Date: November 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05814-9

Keywords

Aerosols and particles
Ice
Earth system modeling
Climate change and variability
Arctic region