EGU26-8957, updated on 14 Mar 2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-8957
EGU General Assembly 2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Poster | Monday, 04 May, 08:30–10:15 (CEST), Display time Monday, 04 May, 08:30–12:30
 
Hall A, A.82
Future winter shipping opportunities in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway
Haoran Shi1, Pengfei Xue2,3,4, Mingzhen Liu5,6, Chenfu Huang2, Miraj B. Kayastha3, Sapna Sharma7, Haodong Yang8, Weijia Wang1, Di Long9, Lian Feng10, Yuanzhe Liu11, Christina W. Y. Wong5,6, Kee-hung Lai5,12, and R. Iestyn Woolway1
Haoran Shi et al.
  • 1Bangor University, College of Science and Engineering, School of Ocean Sciences , Menai Bridge, UK (h.shi@bangor.ac.uk)
  • 2Great Lakes Research Center, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA
  • 3Department of Civil, Environmental and Geospatial Engineering, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA
  • 4Environmental Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA
  • 5Shipping Research Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
  • 6Business Division, School of Fashion and Textiles, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
  • 7Department of Biology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 8College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
  • 9State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • 10State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
  • 11COSCO Shipping Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China
  • 12Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

The St Lawrence River and the Laurentian Great Lakes form one of the longest deep draft navigation systems in the world. However, this golden inland waterway is typically closed during winter due to ice cover on the river and lakes. As the Great Lakes basin is projected to become warmer and less ice-covered, climate warming is expected to stimulate new opportunities for winter shipping activities in this region.

This study analyses the projected ice data in the Great Lakes basin over the 21st century from a two-way coupled climate-lake model (GLARM-v2). We proposed a safe navigation criterion for winter shipping in the lakes based on projected ice conditions, saying ice coverage smaller than 0.7~0.8 and ice thickness smaller than 15 cm. With this criterion, we found that under the high-emissions Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario, 68% of the Great Lakes region is projected to be navigable year-round by late-century (2080–2099).

Based on historical real-world shipping activity records, we identified 65 established navigation routes in this region. Under RCP 8.5, the annual ice-blocked duration for these navigation routes is projected to shorten by 78% by late-century (2080–2099) relative to the historical baseline (2000–2019), which means a two-month extension of annual shipping season. These changes have the potential to shift winter cargo transportation from land-based modes like railway and heavy truck to the shipping industry. Such a shift can potentially save billions in transportation costs and reduce substantial greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector.

How to cite: Shi, H., Xue, P., Liu, M., Huang, C., Kayastha, M. B., Sharma, S., Yang, H., Wang, W., Long, D., Feng, L., Liu, Y., Wong, C. W. Y., Lai, K., and Woolway, R. I.: Future winter shipping opportunities in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-8957, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-8957, 2026.