Canada: Large number of icebergs affect North Atlantic’s shipping lanes

Recent increase in number of icebergs from 37 to about 450 has been attributed by experts to climate change and blowing of strong winds in the counter-clockwise direction which consequently broke off chunks of the Greenland ice sheet which floated away.

Gabrielle McGrath, Coast Guard Cmdr, who leads the ice patrol, said she had seen for the first time such a drastic increase in such a short duration of time and predicted a fourth consecutive extreme ice season with more than 600 icebergs in the shipping lanes.

Trans-Atlantic vessels were forced by icebergs to detour for additional around 640 kilometres to the trip, instead of cutting straight across the ocean, which amounted to a day and a half of added travel time for many large cargo ships.

Executive chairman, Capt. Sid Hynes of Oceanex which owned Cargo ships near the Newfoundland coast said the ships had to throt back to 3 or 4 knots to get to their homeport in St. John's, adding up to a day to the trip.

He said one ship had hit a chunk of ice and was pulled out for repairs and all these added to the expenses.

The International Ice Patrol was formed after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 to monitor iceberg danger in the North Atlantic and warn ships. It conducts inspection of flights that are used to produce charts and said in 104 years no ships that received warning had struck an iceberg.

In 2014, there were 1,546 icebergs in the shipping lanes, the sixth most severe season on record since 1900, according to the patrol. There were 1,165 icebergs in 2015 and 687 in 2016.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)