Abstract
Abstract. In 1997 the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) adopted MARPOL Annex VI to prevent air pollution by shipping emissions. It regulates, among other issues, the sulfur content in shipping fuels, which is transformed into the air pollutant sulfur dioxide (SO2) during combustion. Within designated Sulfur Emission Control Areas (SECA), the sulfur content was limited to 1 %, and on 1 January 2015, this limit was further reduced to 0.1 %. Here we present the set-up and measurement results of a permanent ship emission monitoring site near Hamburg harbour in the North Sea SECA. Trace gas measurements are conducted with in situ instruments and a data set from September 2014 to January 2015 is presented. By combining measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) and SO2 with ship position data, it is possible to deduce the sulfur fuel content of individual ships passing the measurement station, thus facilitating the monitoring of compliance of ships with the IMO regulations. While compliance is almost 100 % for the 2014 data, it decreases only very little in 2015 to 95.4 % despite the much stricter limit. We analysed more than 1400 ship plumes in total and for months with favourable conditions, up to 40 % of all ships entering and leaving Hamburg harbour could be checked for their sulfur fuel content.
Highlights
Shipping is a major part of the global transportation sector and its importance is still growing
Despite being the most efficient and least emitting mode of transportation per ton of cargo compared to land-based or airborne transport, shipping emissions are a considerable fraction of total anthropogenic emissions and have a significant impact on the air quality of coastal areas. 70 % of shipping emissions are produced within 400 km off the coasts (Corbett et al, 1999) and can cause severe health and environmental problems to these regions (Corbett et al, 2007; Eyring et al, 2010)
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO), an agency of the UN with 171 member states, has decided on measures to limit the impact of shipping emissions by adopting MARPOL Annex VI in 1997
Summary
Shipping is a major part of the global transportation sector and its importance is still growing. The operation of exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers) is permitted, as long as it provides the same level of protection against sulfur dioxide emissions as the use of low sulfur fuel These alternative options have been deployed to some ships and first studies have documented their effectiveness and economic efficiency (Reynolds, 2011; Jiang et al, 2014), but they are still under development and not very widespread, and for the vast majority of ships, the only option to meet the regulations is to use desulfurised fuel. It is not possible to evaluate the performance and compliance of scrubber technology by sulfur prediction in bunker oil samples which would be problematic if this method becomes more popular and common in future Another problem is to control ship fuel of ships on the open sea. Fur content in shipping fuel used in SECAs and follows the recent strong tightening of the regulation on 1 January 2015
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
