Finland expects to operate at least as many icebreakers over the coming decades as it does now, despite rising temperatures and a declining average ice cover in the Baltic Sea.
That is the conclusion of a government-commissioned report published this week by the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, which sets out a proposed fleet renewal programme running from 2026 to 2045. The assessment was prepared in cooperation with the Swedish Maritime Administration.
The report finds that climate change will make ice conditions more variable and harder to predict. Average ice cover is expected to decrease, but Finland will continue to have winters with severe ice, and the planned offshore wind farms in the Baltic are expected to alter ice dynamics and narrow the navigable areas available to commercial shipping. Further modelling of that effect is expected in early 2027.
The more striking finding concerns the ships rather than the ice. Merchant vessels, the report says, increasingly have lower engine power relative to their cargo capacity, less suitable bow designs and towing arrangements, and larger windage areas. As a result, even ships carrying relatively high ice classifications often struggle to make their own way through ice compared with older vessels.
The trend is attributed in part to the optimisation of commercial ships for open-water efficiency and lower fuel consumption. The report warns that the gap between a vessel's theoretical ice classification and its actual performance in ice is becoming more pronounced, and that this could increase demand for icebreaker assistance even as average ice conditions become milder.
Last winter Russia sent a nuclear icebreaker from the Arctic to help in the Baltic during severe ice conditions, an indication of how quickly a mild average can produce a difficult February.
The proposed programme replaces the Finnish fleet by age. First in line are Urho and Sisu, both built in the 1970s, followed by Kontio and Otso in the 2030s and the multipurpose icebreakers Fennica and Nordica in the 2040s. It is separate from the replacement already under way for the much older Voima, for which the new B+ class vessel Aino is being developed.
Finland has reason to take winter navigation seriously: more than 95 per cent of its foreign trade in goods moves by sea. The report says reliable winter shipping matters for industrial supply chains and security of supply, and recommends assessing whether future icebreakers should carry additional capabilities, including open-sea operational capacity and surveillance equipment.
It also proposes closer cooperation with Sweden. Both countries operate ageing vessels of the Urho and Atle class, two and three respectively, and the agencies recommend exploring a common replacement design and the possibility of joint procurement. No joint order has been announced; further work on the legal and procurement arrangements is proposed by the end of this year.
The report's central recommendation is that a reliable winter navigation system will also require improvements to the ice-going capabilities of commercial vessels. Finland and Sweden are considering revisions to their shared ice-class rules so that a rating better reflects what a ship can actually do.
This newspaper wishes to draw out the arithmetic, because it is better than the authors let on. Demand for icebreaking is not set by the amount of ice. It is set by the difference between the amount of ice and the ability of the fleet to get through it. Both terms are falling. Only one of them is falling on purpose.
The ice is retreating at the pace of the climate. The fleet is retreating at the pace of fuel-efficiency targets, which is considerably faster. A ship optimised for open water meets a thin winter and requires assistance it would not have needed in a thick one.
Extended properly, the finding is a limit argument of some elegance. As ice cover approaches zero, the ice capability of the merchant fleet approaches zero rather sooner, and the ratio of assistance required to ice present tends to infinity.
The Department of Unnecessary Research has accordingly revised its guidance for the Gulf of Bothnia. The hardest winter in the Baltic's history will be the first one with no ice in it, and Finland should order the icebreakers now.