![]() They used artificial intelligence to automatically identify ship tracks across 17 years of daytime images captured by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite. Scientists used advanced computing techniques to create the first global climatology of ship tracks. By capping fuel sulphur content at 0.5%, down from 3.5%, IMO’s global regulation in 2020 changed the chemical and physical composition of ship exhaust. The cap required an 86% reduction in fuel sulphur content which NASA believes reduced ship track formation. ![]() The highly concentrated droplets scatter more light and therefore appear brighter than non-polluted marine clouds, which are seeded by larger particles such as sea salt.ĭrawing on nearly two decades of satellite imagery, researchers found that the number of ship tracks fell significantly after the global sulphur cap – also known as IMO 2020 – went into effect. ![]() Ship tracks are formed by water vapour coalescing around small particles of pollution – aerosols – in ship exhaust. Ship tracks, the polluted marine clouds that trail ocean-crossing vessels, are a signature of modern trade, described by NASA as “ghostly fingerprints” tracing shipping lanes around the globe. ![]() NASA conceded that pandemic-related disruptions played a secondary, smaller role in the decline of shipping pollution that year. A newly published study from the American space agency has found that so-called ship track clouds dropped dramatically in 2020, the first year of the implementation of the International Maritime Organization’s new fuel regulations. NASA has hailed the beneficial effects of the global sulphur cap to the atmosphere. ![]()
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