Maximum Expected Time of Rescue by Canadian Coast Guard vessels to maritime incidents in the Canadian Arctic

Global warming has increased mean annual temperatures in Canada and the Arctic by 1.7°C and 2.3°C respectively from 1948 to 2016. This has already led into increased maritime activity, with future projections further heightening concerns about Arctic shipping incidents. The International Maritime Organization’s Polar Code, the main regulatory vehicle for shipping safety in polar waters, mandates ships to estimate the Maximum Expected Time of Rescue (METR), i.e. the time during which a vessel should be self-sustaining until external rescue arrives to bring the ship complement to a place of safety. The Code stipulates that this METR should at least be 5 days, but there currently is a lack of approaches to estimate METR. This study investigates whether the 5-day response timeframe is adequate in the Canadian Arctic. Focusing on response by official assets, notably the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) vessels, this research presents a simulation model to estimate response durations considering ice coverage, seasonal variation, bathymetry, and vessel ice-going capabilities. The simulations rely on Automatic Identification System and historical sea ice data analysis to identify spatio-temporal patterns of response time of available CCG vessels to incidents in the Canadian Arctic. The research presents results for different Canadian Arctic zones for biweekly periods, revealing that the Polar Code’s 5-day METR requirement is often inadequate at multiple times of the year, particularly in western zones of the Canadian Arctic with dense ice coverage. A discussion focuses on practical and policy implications of the findings, and various future research avenues are outlined.