북극해 항행 모델을 이용한 최적항로 분석

Abstract

This study is intended to build an ice/marine/meteorological database regarding the Northern Sea Route(NSR) of Russia and the Northwest Passage(NWP) of Canada the major sea routes across the Arctic Ocean. Selection of the optimum Arctic sea routes for large icebreaking vessels based on this database was analysed to estimate minimum time and operation cost.

The database includes ice information such as thickness, density of sea ice, size and distribution of ice ridge along the sea routes in the Arctic Ocean and marine/meteorological information such as waves, wind and ocean/tidal current and additionally, factors such as fog, icing and snowstorm affecting visibility and sailing speed.

The sailing speed of vessels depends on the speed reduction factors(SRF) which may be determined from the environmental database. The concept of the speed, time factors and the Arctic environmental database accumulated for recent 11 years, and the core elements in making an Arctic transit simulation program 'IceTran'.

The 'IceTran' program developed in this study was used to compare with the optimum Arctic routes studied in the previous literature, such as in CRREL and INSROP researches. This study suggested the possible sea routes of the Arctic Ocean in the future, through the simulation based on the ice data after 2005 that reflects the reduction of sea ice in Arctic Ocean.