Effects of global ship emissions on European air pollution levels

Abstract

Abstract. Ship emissions constitute a large, and so far poorly regulated, source of air pollution. Emissions are mainly clustered along major ship routes both in open seas and close to densely populated shorelines. Major air pollutants emitted include sulfur dioxide, NOx, and primary particles. Sulfur and NOx are both major contributors to the formation of secondary fine particles (PM2.5) and to acidification and eutrophication. In addition, NOx is a major precursor for ground-level ozone. In this paper, we quantify the contributions from international shipping to European air pollution levels and depositions. This study is based on global and regional model calculations. The model runs are made with meteorology and emission data representative of the year 2017 after the tightening of the SECA (sulfur emission control area) regulations in 2015 but before the global sulfur cap that came into force in 2020. The ship emissions have been derived using ship positioning data. We have also made model runs reducing sulfur emissions by 80 % corresponding to the 2020 requirements. This study is based on model sensitivity studies perturbing emissions from different sea areas: the northern European SECA in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, the Atlantic Ocean close to Europe, shipping in the rest of the world, and finally all global ship emissions together. Sensitivity studies have also been made setting lower bounds on the effects of ship plumes on ozone formation. Both global- and regional-scale calculations show that for PM2.5 and depositions of oxidised nitrogen and sulfur, the effects of ship emissions are much larger when emissions occur close to the shore than at open seas. In many coastal countries, calculations show that shipping is responsible for 10 % or more of the controllable PM2.5 concentrations and depositions of oxidised nitrogen and sulfur. With few exceptions, the results from the global and regional calculations are similar. Our calculations show that substantial reductions in the contributions from ship emissions to PM2.5 concentrations and to depositions of sulfur can be expected in European coastal regions as a result of the implementation of a 0.5 % worldwide limit of the sulfur content in marine fuels from 2020. For countries bordering the North Sea and Baltic Sea SECA, low sulfur emissions have already resulted in marked reductions in PM2.5 from shipping before 2020. For ozone, the lifetime in the atmosphere is much longer than for PM2.5, and the potential for ozone formation is much larger in otherwise pristine environments. We calculate considerable contributions from open sea shipping. As a result, we find that the largest contributions to ozone in several regions and countries in Europe are from sea areas well outside European waters.

Revealing Topography Evolution of Glass Surface under Air Pollution by Atomic Force Microscope

“…(1) With the increase of exposure time of the glass sheet to the air, the deposition process of air pollutants on the surface of the long-standing glass slide approaches a transition process from discontinuous deposition to uniform coverage, which also directly leads to the overall trend of RMS roughness value first rising and then falling over time (2) The surface of the glass slide after being placed for a long time only has the accumulation of pollutants on the physical level, and there is no new generation of compounds on the chemical level.…”

“…Outdoor air pollution, often called air pollution, is primarily caused by industrial waste gas and traffic exhaust. Studies have shown that air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and major particles, are the major contributors to the formation of PM2.5 [1,2]. South Korean researchers surveyed 249 administrative units on the relationship between long-term exposure to air pollutants and cardiopulmonary mortality.…”

Detection of Ship Plumes from Residual Fuel Operation in Emission Control Areas using Single-Particle Mass Spectrometry

“…Among the variety of air pollution sources, ships emit particular large amounts of sulfur, carbonaceous aerosols and metals with substantial impacts on climate and public health (Corbett et al, 2007;Eyring et al, 2010;Viana et al, 2014;Jonson et al, 2020). Between 60,000 and 400,000 annual deaths by cardiopulmonary diseases and lung cancer as well as 14 million cases of childhood asthma were attributed to ship emissions (Sofiev et al, 2018).…”

Comment on acp-2020-1086

“…The latest revision includes more stringent emission limits for NO x and SO 2 . In spite of these abatement regulations, the ship emissions of IMO registered vehicles and non-IMO registered vehicles show constant or slightly increasing trends for the compounds NO x , SO 2 , and PM 2.5 , as well as a clearly increasing trend for CO. Once the stringent regulation for fuel sulfur content (FSC) in marine fuel came into power in 2014, the emissions of SO 2 and PM 2.5 decreased rapidly at regional and global level (Johansson and Jalkanen, 2016;Johnsson et al 2020;Seppälä et al 2020).…”