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Unforeseen Consequences: Air Quality vs. Ocean Temperatures

By now most of us have read the headlines - Hottest Summer on Record! - and that includes our ocean temperatures, unfortunately. The ocean warming effect is often attributed to greenhouse gasses but researchers are now looking into another category: unintended consequences of climate regulations. The one that has their attention right now? Disappearing ship tracks. Ship tracks are low-lying clouds who's creation is aided by the sulfate released by cargo ships, seeding (aka creating an attachment point for vapor to condense into droplets) reflective clouds along the shipping paths across the Atlantic. In 2020, the United Nation's International Maritime Organization (IMO) implemented regulations to cut ships’ sulfur pollution by more than 80% to improve air quality worldwide.

New studies show that by cutting the number of ship tracks, the planet has warmed faster, specifically in the Atlantic where maritime traffic is dense. This unintended experiment is allowing climate scientists to study a geoengineering scheme in action. According to atmospheric scientist Franziska Glassmeier, "the influence of pollution on clouds remains one of the largest sources of uncertainty in how quickly the world will warm up." Other researchers have suggested injecting salt particles back into the air to replace the pollutants being removed and act as a replacement seed for the cloud formations. More research is definitely needed and these researchers are on it! According to them "cloud adjustments" will be the next talking point of climate change discussions.

Photo credit: science.org