Satellite Record of Pan-Arctic Maritime Ship Traffic

Introduction

A prominent socioeconomic development in recent years has been an increase in maritime ship traffic (characterized in view of ship movements and attributes of type, size, and flag state) in the Arctic Ocean as the sea ice diminishes with climate warming (see essay Sea Ice). Increasing maritime ship traffic has diverse implications for Arctic and non-Arctic communities in view of emergent and projected shipping routes (Fig. 1). Shipping activities also impact biogeophysical systems, generating environmental and societal risks—especially for Indigenous Peoples, with system impacts in the:

• Atmosphere: Greenhouse gas impacts, including heavy fuel-oil burning that produces black carbon with ice-surface darkness impacts (IMO 2021);
  Ocean: Pollution impacts (Sheffield et al. 2021) on marine ecosystems (see essay Primary Productivity); overharvesting marine living resources; marine species disturbances, including ship strikes on marine mammals and birds; underwater noise (Stafford 2021); and invasive species introductions that change trophic interactions;
  Communities: Port development, socioeconomic impacts, and access changes.

Indigenous communities are the most vulnerable (Sheffield et al. 2021), respecting they have resided continuously on islands and along the coastlines of Arctic landmasses in a resilient manner in the face of ecosystem changes across millennia. The applications and implications of maritime ship traffic also are cross-cutting with the five binding Arctic agreements that have entered into force during the past decade with Arctic states as well as non-Arctic states (Berkman et al. 2022a).