How is Global Warming effecting Shipping?

 

 Can we blame the  frequency and severity of these extreme weather conditions to today’s  buzz words  “ Global Warming “ or as some prefer to term it “Climate Change” ? It seems we can. In fact not only is the U. S gulf getting effected but every ocean region in the world  is reporting  similar happenings of intense storms over the seas.
The Earth’s average rate of rise of surface  temperature due to the effects of global warming is steadily increasing every year and is  now almost  touching  1 degree Celsius  as indicated in the graph below.

So how does all this affect us – the seafarers; some could be considered  positive though . As the sea temperatures rise,  they give more energy to these storms increasing their frequency and the associated  wind force . In the Arctic Ocean the ice has already  melted enough to allow ships to navigate from Japan to Europe using the new “Northern Sea Route”  saving almost half a month of sailing time as compared to the usual route through the Suez.






Low lying nations such as Maldives, Seychelles , Kiribati, Solomon Islands and even the coastal region of Bangladesh  are threatened to disappear  under water due to the rise in sea levels which is taking place as the ice keeps melting in the Arctic, Antarctic and other  regions .
Over land, the severity of forest fires in Australia , US and Europe has been increasing over the last decade, though this does not directly affect us.
The world has woken up to these facts and almost all nations are taking   steps to slow down the rate of “global warming” by increasing the production of electricity by solar and wind energy harvesting methods thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions. 

India ratified the Paris climate agreement on Mahatma Gandhi Ji’s birthday, 2016 and has promised the world that it has set Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets to lower the emissions intensity by 2030  to below 2005 levels, to increase the share of non-fossil based power generation capacity to 40% of installed electric power capacity by 2030 and to substantially increase the  forest and tree cover by 2030.
However the recent pulling out by the US from the Paris climate agreement has slowed down  the momentum considerably though it is the second biggest  emitter of CO₂ after China.