Author(s): Hajime Yamaguchi; Yuya Nakano
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: The retreat of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean raises the interests on commercial use of Arctic shipping. The aim of this research is to create a forecast system and a criterion of judgment required for use of the Arctic sea routes. The research is being performed with the following 4 items. 1. Development of the prediction technique of sea ice distribution: put emphasis on the short-term forecast of the 5-days scale using a high resolution numerical model, and the middle-term forecast of several-months scale using satellite data and a statistics model. 2. Ice monitoring along the routes: develop an ice monitoring methodology using the sea ice information including ice area, thickness, convergence, divergence, etc., acquired from satellite remote sensing. 3. Understanding the influence of cold region sea conditions on vessels: study the dynamics of ship-ice contact and hull icing. 4. Design of navigation scenario with the economics taken into account, and optimum route search. This paper introduces the outline of the most recent results of these studies and integration work, Also, some details of optimum route search along the Northern Sea Route are described.
Year: 2016