Analysis of the interannual variability of ice conditions along the route “Sabetta — Murmansk” for the period 1997–2018

Abstract

The start-up of a plant for liquid gas production in the town of Sabetta (Russia, Yamal Peninsula) requires the creation of a marine transport system for gas shipment. The town is a significant cluster for gas processing and export from South-Tambey Field. The field stock is estimated at more than one trillion cubic meters of natural gas. Ice cover is a source of possible accidents with tankers. The accidents can lead to environment contamination. Here we consider analysis of the intra- and inter-annual variability of ice conditions on the navigation route “Sabetta seaport — Kara Gate — Murmansk seaport” for the period of 1997–2018. The route is a path for export of liquid gas. Electronic ice maps of the archives of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) were processed. Maps of the archive were created by vectorization of satellite images. For 24 decades from November to June, we obtained the lengths of the route in close floating ice with presence of thick, medium, thin first-year ice, grey-white, grey and new ice, and with partial concentrations of thick and a sum of thick and medium first-year ice equal to five or more points. Tests of homogeneity of the lengths interannual series were carried out by means of the method of integral curves and nonparametric Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney and Siegel-Tukey criteria. Improvement of ice conditions along the route is revealed.