Detectable ship tracks account for just 5% of aerosol indirect forcing from ship emissions.

ABSTRACT: Ship emissions are a major source of aerosols over oceans, affecting both air quality and energy balance of the climate. However, estimates of their climate forcing diverge between studies relying on visible ship-tracks and those based on models. Here we show that forcing due to visible ship-tracks accounts for just 5% of the total forcing over the southeast Atlantic shipping-lane. Most forcing from ship emissions comes from aerosols that do not form detectable ship-tracks. They are only tips of the iceberg. We make three forcing calculations, one bottom-up based on visible ship-tracks, one top-down based on spatial relationships, and a hybrid approach that combines top-down or model estimated cloud droplet number concentration changes and cloud adjustments. Although the forcing based on m

SUBMITTER: Yuan T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12618254 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature