Thanks to melting Arctic sea ice, ships with moderate ice strengthening (lighter than currently required, pictured) may be able to travel northern waters all year round by the century's end.

Credit: Matthew M. Schoenfelder/Getty

Nathanael Melia and his colleagues at the University of Reading, UK, used several global climate models to simulate the fastest shipping routes through the Arctic, depending on future greenhouse-gas emissions. In their most extreme scenario, the route from Yokohama in Japan to Rotterdam in the Netherlands becomes 13 days shorter than alternative routes by 2100.

Even ordinary vessels could see the period during which they can navigate Arctic waters double by mid-century.

Geophys. Res. Lett. http://doi.org/bp5x (2016)