Arctic sea ice area (SIA) during late summer and early fall decreased substantially over the last four decades, and its decline accelerated beginning in the early 2000s. Statistical analyses of observations show that enhanced poleward moisture transport from the North Pacific to the Arctic Ocean contributed to the accelerated SIA decrease during the most recent period. As a consequence, specific humidity in the Arctic Pacific sector significantly increased along with an increase of downward longwave radiation beginning in 2002, which led to a significant acceleration in the decline of SIA in the Arctic Pacific sector. The resulting sea ice loss led to increased evaporation in the Arctic Ocean, resulting in a further increase of the specific humidity in mid-to-late fall, thus acting as a positive feedback to the sea ice loss. The overall set of processes is also found in a long control simulation of a coupled climate model.

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Ever since the Arctic region has opened its mysterious passage to mankind, continuous attempts to take advantage of its fastest route across the region has been made. The Arctic region is still covered by thick ice and thus finding a feasible navigating route is essential for an economical voyage. To find the optimal route, it is necessary to establish an efficient transit model that enables us to simulate every possible route in advance. In this work, an enhanced algorithm to determine the optimal route in the Arctic region is introduced. A transit model based on the simulated sea ice and environmental data numerically modeled in the Arctic is developed. By integrating the simulated data into a transit model, further applications such as route simulation, cost estimation or hindcast can be easily performed. An in-teractive simulation system that determines the optimal Arctic route using the transit model is developed. The simulation of optimal routes is carried out and the validity of the results is discussed.