Dozens of ships stuck in Arctic as ice freezes early
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
More than two dozen cargo vessels are stuck in Russia’s Arctic ice, waiting for ice-breakers to come to their rescue, after an inaccurate forecast from the country’s Met Office.
Maritime traffic in the Northern Sea Route has been on the rise in recent years as rapidly warming winters reduce ice cover, and Russia invests in its Arctic ports in preparation for a further boom.
But this year several segments of the Northern Sea Route froze up about a fortnight earlier than usual, catching many ships unawares.
Alexei Likhachyov – director general of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom, which manages the country’s nuclear-power fleet of ice-breakers – said on Monday that the ships included vessels sailing under the flags of Hong Kong and Marshall Islands.
He blamed the Russian Met office for a forecast that failed to predict the early ice, in comments to local media.
Companies shipping goods via the Northern Sea Route typically book a Rosatom ice-breaker in advance to accompany their vessel, but did not this time as they were assured of good weather.
Some of the vessels sailing from Murmansk in Russia’s north-west to Chukotka in the north-east have been stranded for more than a week, endangering the deliveries of essential goods to remote towns on Russia’s Arctic coast.
Viktor Gil, captain of The Mikhail Somov, one of the ships stranded along the Northern Sea Route, told the Tass news agency that the situation was “quite dire”.
“The ice is up to one and a half metres thick here,” he said, but added that the crew had supplies enough to last until an ice-breaker reaches them in around a week.
Mr Likhachyov said ice-breakers were already on their way to the stranded vessels, but warned that the rescue operation could take some time as the ships are scattered across the sea.
Indeed, Arctic sea ice extent is at its highest since at least 2016 now, having finished the summer at its highest since 2014:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
It is also much thicker than last year:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Add this to the record cold summer in the Antarctic and you might wonder what’s going on with the climate. I’ve just stocked up with some more logs for my wood burner but I know nothing.
You may be Mad, Mike but you know it’ll be cheaper than a heat pump!
and actually keep him warm!
I was sawing up another batch of wood for the fire at the weekend. And then the fun of wheeling out the splitter to take then down a size more. Quite therapeutic as you watch the blade cleave the wood apart.
What sort of splitter do you use?
Amazing the power of a few ppm of CO2
You may well need those logs as one long range weather forecast is for a little ice age winter.
But the Met Office says it will be mild and wet – and who can argue with the Met Office?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/23/brace-floods-warn-forecasters-wetter-winter-way/
The BBC and they are unbiased.
“Maritime traffic in the Northern Sea Route has been on the rise in recent years as rapidly warming winters reduce ice cover, and Russia invests in its Arctic ports in preparation for a further boom.”
The Torygraph ‘forgot’ to report Russia also invests in icebreakers because it, like the USA, Canada, China & Australia realises there’ll be needs for them for decades to come.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/2015/12/these-are-russias-new-icebreakers
https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/05/24/congress-takes-a-big-step-toward-funding-a-new-1-billion-arctic-icebreaker/
https://thediplomat.com/2016/12/china-begins-construction-of-polar-icebreaker/
Arctic sea ice has hidden its own decline, for a while at least. Blip or trend? Not much has changed in recent years and solar cycle 25 still hasn’t got going to any significant extent, which could be a factor.
On Quest they currently advertise a Discovery + programme first broadcast a year ago https://www.discoveryplus.co.uk/show/expedition-to-the-edge and i am sure that the voice over mentions that the ice was the worst for 20 years
I googled “BBC Arctic” and sure enough there was no BBC report on the Arctic freezing.
There was however this:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bbc-met-office-at-war-25519228
BBC and Met Office ‘at war’ over white Christmas with polar opposite forecasts – Mirror Online
DTN, or Data Transmission Network, is a company that offers data analysis, meteorological consulting and weather forecasting.. The Met Office is hoping it will win out after splurging £1.2billion …
http://www.mirror.co.uk
So we are in for either a mild Christmas or a freezing Christmas – I am sure whichever one it is will be blamed on the “Global Warming Emergency”
You can plot the vessel locations from the data here:
http://www.nsra.ru/en/grafik_dvijeniya_po_smp.html?date=2021-11-23
The icebreakers are НОВОРОССИЙСК – Novorossisk (diesel), ТАЙМЫР – IMO 8417481 – Taimyr – (nuclear), ЯМАЛ – Yamal – (nuclear) and ВАЙГАЧ – Vaigach – (nuclear).
Arc 7 class LNG ships, plying out of Sabetta are GEORGIY USHAKOV (not to be confused with ГЕОРГИЙ УШАКОВ which is a cargo ship of the same name – IMO numbers help distinguish), GEORGIY BRUSILOV, RUDOLF SAMOYLOVICH (now slowed as it makes it way through thicker ice on its way back from China), BORIS DAVYDOV (making good progress through the strait south of Bolshevik Island between the Lapetev and Kara seas), and the VLADIMIR RUSANOV which has been stuck in the ice for some time.
Ships in ports are not shown. There are fewer vessels stuck in open ocean than a few days ago. BORIS VILKITSKY (departed Incheon, Korea on 11th), appears to be aiming for the Arctic route.