(Press-News.org) Statisticians have calculated the probability of ships of different Polar Ship Categories becoming beset in ice along the Northern Sea Route. Their data will help assess the risks of maritime traffic in the Arctic.
The results of the new study, published recently in the Cold Regions Science and Technology journal, will support safer maritime transport planning and the prevention of oil spills. The results will also benefit authorities that regulate maritime traffic by providing a foundation for statutes and legislation. A comprehensive approach to computing helps shipping companies plan transport routes.
Tankers more common on the Northern Sea Route
The Northern Sea Route is attracting more tankers and cargo ships travelling from Russia and Asia to Europe, and traffic is expected to increase along the route in tandem with global warming (Figure 1).
In the winter, the sea is frozen over, making it inaccessible to ships of a lower Polar Ship Category without the assistance of an icebreaker. Ships can also become beset in ice in the spring and summer, leading to transport delays. At its worst, ice may force a vessel off its course so that it runs aground, with disastrous consequences.
"This is the first time a comprehensive risk assessment of a besetting event was performed using open data only," says Assistant Professor of Statistics Jarno Vanhatalo, head of the Environmental and Ecological Statistics group and director of the Master's Programme in Life Science Informatics at the University of Helsinki.
The researchers used satellite data on ice conditions in Arctic marine areas as well as open data sources on shipping.
"One of the biggest tasks required the merger of open datasets so that analyses could be conducted. This task was performed by Aalto University. The statistical analyses were carried out at the University of Helsinki, using a traditional generalised linear model, to which a Bayesian approach was applied," Vanhatalo explains.
Ice conditions on northern maritime routes
"If we know the ice conditions prevailing in a specific area, which can usually be ascertained from satellite images, we can make a prediction for, say, today and for each point along the Northern Sea Route," states Vanhatalo. The prediction indicates the probability of a ship of a particular type becoming beset in ice in a particular area (Figure 2).
The Polar Ship Category of a ship has a crucial impact on the probability of besetting. Ships of a lower category are most at risk, and many of them become beset in ice each year.
The researchers also analysed the effect of ice concentration on the probability of besetting. Ice concentration indicates the share of the sea covered by ice. In the winter, ice concentration is 100%, whereas in the spring and summer it varies from 0% to 100%, which means that the marine area is a mosaic of ice floes and open water.
The probability of a ship becoming beset in ice increases the longer the distance it travels in ice-covered waters and also increases significantly with higher ice concentrations. There are also considerable differences between ships of different Polar Ship Categories. For the best vessels, i.e., Category A ships, the probability of besetting on a journey of 3,000 nautical miles (NM) in 90%-100% ice concentration is just 0.04. Correspondingly, the probability for Category B ships is 7.5 times higher, or 0.3, whereas the probability for Category C ships is 22.5 times higher, or 0.9.
The newly published study is part of an international long-term research project funded by the Lloyd's Register Foundation and aimed at improving maritime safety. Launched in 2003, the project will conclude at the end of 2021. Participants in the CEARCTIC and CEPOLAR projects, headed by Aalto University, include not only the University of Helsinki, but also the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, and the Hamburg University of Technology in Germany.
The University of Helsinki researchers have been responsible for assessing the impact of a potential oil spill on the Arctic environment and biotic communities. Previous publications have focused on species of organisms in the Kara Sea and the effects of an oil spill in the area. [link: https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/environmental-and-ecological-statistics/oil-spill-risk-analysis-in-the-arctic]
Although the research project is coming to a close, before the end of this year it will publish more statistical analyses of uncertainties associated with the modelling.
"Due to the limited measurement data available from Arctic marine areas, there are major uncertainties concerning shipping, living organisms and the behaviour of oil. Another major uncertainty relates to the natural stochasticity of highly unstable environmental conditions," Vanhatalo adds.
Another article currently being written explores the relative significances of factors affecting the overall risk as well as how risk analyses should be carried out and how the conclusions drawn differ depending on what is examined. Does the examination focus solely on the accident risk of vessels or also on the risk they pose to marine biotic communities? The results depend on whether both are examined separately or at the same time.
Other upcoming publications include summarising reports on the project as a whole and recommendations based on the research conducted.
INFORMATION:
Reference:
Probability of a ship becoming beset in ice along the Northern Sea Route - A Bayesian analysis of real-life data. Jarno Vanhatalo, Juri Huuhtanen, Martin Bergström, Inari Helle, Jussi Mäkinen, Pentti Kujala
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2021.103238
Cold regions science and technology, Volume 184, April 2021, 103238
Further information:
https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/environmental-and-ecological-statistics
https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/environmental-and-ecological-statistics/oil-spill-risk-analysis-in-the-arctic
Assistant Professor Jarno Vanhatalo, University of Helsinki
Email: jarno.vanhatalo@helsinki.fi
Phone: +358 503175494
https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/people/people-finder/jarno-vanhatalo-9118861
Powerful and squat stegosaurs are now one of the most recognisable dinosaurs: they are easily identified by the spines on the tail and the bony plates on the back - osteoderms. The representatives of this group lived about 165-125 million years ago, during the Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. They were five to seven metres long and had a disproportionately small head. Their teeth were therefore quite small - about a centimetre in height and about the same in width.
Palaeontologists from St Petersburg University worked together with colleagues from: the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; the ...
The ocean covers about 70% of the Earth's surface area and is the largest reservoir of energy. Researchers have been exploring the approach for harnessing ocean energy to solve the world energy crisis and pollution problems caused by thermal power generation. The nanogenerator, including piezoelectric, triboelectric, and pyroelectric nanogenerators, is one of the key technologies for mechanical energy conversion. The triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) makes use of the triboelectric effect and electrostatic induction to harvest mechanical energy based on contact or sliding electrification.
However, conventional TENG device is often based on solid/solid contact, and it is hard to ensure the contact intimacy of the two tribo-materials. In the meanwhile, the material surfaces will wear or become ...
Research from the University of Kent's School of Biosciences has revealed that a molecule produced by the human immune system can severely diminish the potency of certain antibiotics.
This may explain why antibiotics effective in laboratory settings can be less effective at clearing infections in humans.
The research findings, which have been published in the journal Archives of Microbiology, reveal that nitric oxide, a molecule produced by our immune systems, can render aminoglycoside antibiotics ineffective when used against E. coli strains isolated from ...
Geopolitical boundaries can have a profound effect on the protection of threatened species. A case in point is the native cycads of the United States. A recent review paper written by researchers at the Western Pacific Tropical Research Center at the University of Guam highlights extinction risks of cycad species that occur in U.S. controlled lands and the profound effect geopolitical boundaries has had on the protection of these threatened species. The paper appears in the December 2020 issue of the MDPI journal Diversity.
Cycads are the most threatened plant order worldwide. This is due to a combination of factors including habitat loss, poaching predation by invasive species, and lack of appropriate ...
Shipping provides the very foundation for world trade, by moving an estimated 11 billion tonnes of goods a year from where they are produced to where they will be used. From TVs to toasters, soap to sugar -- much of it moves over the waves.
Yet for ships plying the open ocean and for offshore industries, waves present an enormous challenge --because they can increase operational risks, reduce operating efficiency, and be dangerous if large enough and not handled well -- and they can be difficult to predict.
Ships can access information about wave heights, directions and frequency, but those data may be expensive to obtain or delayed because of satellite communication limitations, says Zhengru ...
Undocumented women in Finland access pregnancy care later than others. Yet, screening of infectious diseases at the early stages of pregnancy would be particularly important to these women, a new study carried out in Helsinki, Finland, shows. Conducted by the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Helsinki, the study on undocumented women's pregnancy care and childbirth was published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth.
Undocumented pregnant women constitute a vulnerable group of people who lack equal access to pregnancy care. Previous ...
Study finds that children who experienced housing loss in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake are more inclined to opt for short-term gratification
Tokyo - Living through a tragic event might make us more inclined to live for the moment, but not always in a good way. Research is looking into the psychological after-effects among children who survived the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and a recent study may have made a connection: the children may forgo greater long-term reward for short-term pleasure.
Among the traumatic experiences in the quake and subsequent tsunami that killed almost 16,000 people, some survivors witnessed people washed ...
In their pursuit of maximum reward, people suffering from gambling disorder rely less on exploring new but potentially better strategies, and more on proven courses of action that have already led to success in the past. The neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain may play an important role in this, a study in biological psychology conducted at the University of Cologne's Faculty of Human Sciences by Professor Dr Jan Peters und Dr Antonius Wiehler suspects. The article 'Attenuated directed exploration during reinforcement learning in gambling disorder' has appeared in the latest edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, published ...
In cancer immunotherapy, cells in the patient's own immune system are activated to attack cancer cells. CAR T cell therapy has been one of the most significant recent advances in immunotherapies targeted at cancer.
In CAR T cell therapy, T cells are extracted from the patient for genetic modification: a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) is transported into the cells using a viral vector, helping the T cells better identify and kill cancer cells. When the antigen receptor cells identify the desired surface structure in the patient's cells, they start multiplying and killing the target cells.
CAR T cell therapy was introduced to Finland in 2018, and the treatment form has been used in support of patients suffering from leukaemia and lymphomas.
So ...
A Delphi survey carried out by Dr Lyn Robinson, Head of Department and Reader in Library and Information Science at City, University of London, and Dr David Haynes, former Visiting Lecturer and Post-Doctoral Fellow in City's Department of Library and Information Science, has revealed priorities for protecting personal privacy online.
Their research study, "Delphi study of risk to individuals who disclose personal information online", published in the Journal of Information Science, was conducted at City in 2019, and is based on the views of a panel of privacy and information security experts.
A literature review, published between 2014 and ...
