Effects of marine fuel sulfur restrictions on particle number concentrations and size distributions in ship plumes in the Baltic Sea

Seppälä, Sami; Kuula, Joel; Hyvärinen, Antti; Saarikoski, Sanna; Rönkkö, Topi; Keskinen, Jorma; Jalkanen, Jukka-Pekka; Timonen, Hilkka

doi:10.5194/acp-21-3215-2021

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(92 reference statements)

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“…The establishment of the NECA in 2021 has had no significant impact on this trend, it is even projected that by 2025 the NOx emission contribution from OGVs will surpass any other source and contribute to 40% of all NOx emissions for the Flemish region by 2030 (Figure 8B). These results largely corroborate the findings of previous large-scale studies that modelled the shipping contribution to inland pollution [30,31,[81][82][83][84][85] reduced SO2 emissions, significantly reducing the contribution of shipping to domestic SO2 pollution in Belgium, from over 10% in the early 2000s to 3% in 2015. The implementation of the Global Sulphur Cap also coincided with an improvement in compliance levels, which can also be partly attributed to the increased implementation of remote monitoring by North Sea coastal states.…”

Section: Real World Nox Emissions and Compliance Trendssupporting

confidence: 89%

Assessment of the Effect of International Maritime Regulations on Air Quality in the Southern North Sea

Roy¹,

Merveille²,

Scheldeman³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Air pollution is a leading cause of death worldwide, and has a profound impact on the planet's climate and ecosystems. A substantial portion of air pollution is attributable to Ocean Going Vessels (OGVs). In light of this, international regulations have been put in place to mitigate air pollutant emissions from OGVs. While studies have indicated that these regulations can create significant health, environmental, and economic benefits, there remains a research gap regarding their specific impact on enhancing air quality. The aim of this study is to investigate how the implemented regulations have affected air quality in the Southern North Sea. The study found that the international regulations on ship emissions have successfully led to a decline in SO2 emissions from OGVs in the Southern North Sea, which resulted in a reduction of ambient SO2 concentrations inland, leading to positive effects on public health and the environment. However, it was projected that their proportion is tend to increase in the following years. Moreover, the study revealed that Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems (EGCS) present significant concerns. They were significantly more frequently found to be non-compliant, and more alarmingly, they emit notably higher average levels of SO2. It also turned out that international regulations in the southern North Sea have less effect on the reduction of NOx emissions from OGVs than expected. The NOx emissions from OGVs will even account for an alarming 40% of the total domestic NOx emissions for the Belgian Region by 2030.

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Section: Real World Nox Emissions and Compliance Trendssupporting

confidence: 89%

Assessment of the Effect of International Maritime Regulations on Air Quality in the Southern North Sea

Roy¹,

Merveille²,

Scheldeman³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…10.1029/2023JD040389 due to FSC reductions (Seppälä et al, 2021;Yu et al, 2020Yu et al, , 2023Wu et al, 2020). On average EF PN were reduced by 99%, which can be largely attributed to the absence of sulfate aerosol smaller than 50 nm.…”

Section: Journal Of Geophysical Research: Atmospheresmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Recent studies show that particulate emissions have coincidentally been reduced following the implementation of both, a 2015 0.1% SECA limit and a global 2020 0.5% FSC cap (Anastasopolos et al, 2021;Seppälä et al, 2021;Wu et al, 2020;Yu et al, 2020Yu et al, , 2023. This complimentary particle reduction is likely caused by shifts toward higher grade residual fuel oils and distillate fuels or due to blending of fuels to meet FSC compliance levels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine Fuel Regulations and Engine Emissions: Impacts on Physicochemical Properties, Cloud Activity and Emission Factors

Santos,

Salo,

Kong

et al. 2024

JGR Atmospheres

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Marine regulations aim to reduce sulfur and nitrogen exhaust emissions from maritime shipping. Here, two compliance pathways for reducing sulfur dioxide emissions, fuel sulfur content reduction and exhaust wet scrubbing, are studied for their effects on physicochemical properties and cloud forming abilities of engine exhaust particles. A test‐bed diesel engine was utilized to study fresh exhaust emissions from combustion of non‐compliant, high sulfur content fuel with (WS) and without (HiS) the usage of a wet scrubber as well as a regulatory compliant, low sulfur content fuel (LoS). Particle number emissions are decreased by ≈99% when switching to LoS due to absence of 20–30 nm sulfate rich particles. While number emissions for WS are also decreased, a shift in the sulfate mode toward larger sizes was found to increase particle mass emission factors by at least 31%. Changes in the mixing state induced by the compliance measures are reflected in the hygroscopicity of the exhaust particles. Fuel sulfur reduction decreased cloud condensation nuclei emissions by at least 97% due to emissions of primarily hydrophobic soot particles. Wet scrubbing increased those emissions, mainly driven by changes in particle size distributions. Our results indicate that both compliance alternatives have no obvious impact on the ice forming abilities of 200 nm exhaust particles. These detailed results are relevant for atmospheric processes and might be useful input parameters for cloud‐resolving models to investigate ship aerosol‐cloud interactions and to quantify the impact of shipping on radiative budgets from local to global scales.

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“…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 vessels and non-IMO-registered vessels show constant or slightly increasing trends in NO x , SO 2 , and PM 2.5 compounds as well as a clearly increasing trend in CO. Once the stringent regulation of the fuel sulfur content (FSC) in marine fuel came into power on 1 January 2015, the emissions of SO 2 and PM 2.5 decreased rapidly at both regional and global levels (Johansson and Jalkanen, 2016;Jonson et al, 2020;Seppälä et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measurement report: Characterization of uncertainties in fluxes and fuel sulfur content from ship emissions in the Baltic Sea

et al. 2021

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Abstract. Fluxes of gaseous compounds and nanoparticles were studied using micrometeorological methods at Harmaja in the Baltic Sea. The measurement site was situated beside the ship route to and from the city of Helsinki. The gradient (GR) method was used to measure fluxes of SO2, NO, NO2, O3, CO2, and Ntot (the number concentration of nanoparticles). In addition, the flux of CO2 was also measured using the eddy-covariance (EC) method. Distortion of the flow field caused by obstacles around the measurement mast was studied by applying a computation fluid dynamic (CFD) model. This was used to establish the corresponding heights in the undisturbed stream. The wind speed and the turbulent parameters at each of the established heights were then recalculated for the gradient model. The effect of waves on the boundary layer was taken into consideration, as the Monin–Obukhov theory used to calculate the fluxes is not valid in the presence of swell. Uncertainty budgets for the measurement systems were constructed to judge the reliability of the results. No clear fluxes across the air–sea nor the sea–air interface were observed for SO2, NO, NO2, NOx (= NO + NO2), O3, or CO2 using the GR method. A negative flux was observed for Ntot, with a median value of −0.23 × 109 m−2 s−1 and an uncertainty range of 31 %–41 %. For CO2, while both positive and negative fluxes were observed, the median value was −0.081 μmol m−2 s−1 with an uncertainty range of 30 %–60 % for the EC methods. Ship emissions were responsible for the deposition of Ntot, while they had a minor effect on CO2 deposition. The fuel sulfur content (FSC) of the marine fuel used in ships passing the site was determined from the observed ratio of the SO2 and CO2 concentrations. A typical value of 0.40 ± 0.06 % was obtained for the FSC, which is in compliance with the contemporary FSC limit value of 1 % in the Baltic Sea area at the time of measurements. The method to estimate the uncertainty in the FSC was found to be accurate enough for use with the latest regulations, 0.1 % (Baltic Sea area) and 0.5 % (global oceans).

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Effects of marine fuel sulfur restrictions on particle number concentrations and size distributions in ship plumes in the Baltic Sea

Cited by 14 publications

References 60 publications

Assessment of the Effect of International Maritime Regulations on Air Quality in the Southern North Sea

Assessment of the Effect of International Maritime Regulations on Air Quality in the Southern North Sea

Marine Fuel Regulations and Engine Emissions: Impacts on Physicochemical Properties, Cloud Activity and Emission Factors

Measurement report: Characterization of uncertainties in fluxes and fuel sulfur content from ship emissions in the Baltic Sea

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