Fuel Regulation Reduced Air Pollution from Shipping

A global standard limiting sulfur in ship fuel reduced artificial “ship track” clouds to record-low levels in 2020. Pandemic-related disruptions played a secondary role.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using data courtesy of Yuan, T., et al. (2022) and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Story by Sally Younger/NASA’s Earth Science News Team.

Published October 19, 2022
Data acquired 2003 - 2020

Sources:

Aqua > MODIS

Model

Suomi NPP > VIIRS

Collections:

Air Quality

Applied Sciences