Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3735
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3735
12 Aug 2025
 | 12 Aug 2025
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).

Conflict-induced ship traffic disruptions constrain cloud sensitivity to stricter marine pollution regulations

Michael S. Diamond and Lili F. Boss

Abstract. Starting in November 2023, the Houthi militia occupying northeastern Yemen has attacked ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a chokepoint on the Europe-Asia route via the Suez Canal. Cargo ship traffic through the Red Sea has since plummeted, with ships instead taking the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope. The increase in traffic in the southeastern Atlantic Ocean is readily apparent in satellite retrievals of nitrogen dioxide. Within the stratocumulus deck covering much of the southeastern Atlantic, a previously detectible cloud microphysical perturbation due to ship pollution had largely disappeared following the International Maritime Organization's sulfur-limiting regulations in 2020 but returns during 2024 due to the increase in ship traffic despite the lower cloud brightening efficacy per ship. Because nitrogen dioxide pollution per unit of fuel oil burned is not affected by switching to low-sulfur fuel, quantifying the ratio of shipping-enhanced cloud droplet number and nitrogen dioxide concentrations before and after the fuel sulfur limits went into effect provides a constraint on the cloud changes from the regulations. We find that the ~80 % reduction in sulfur emissions leads to a ~66 % reduction in the increase in cloud droplet number concentration per unit marine fuel oil burned.

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Michael S. Diamond and Lili F. Boss

Status: open (until 14 Sep 2025)

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Michael S. Diamond and Lili F. Boss

Data sets

Data for Diamond & Boss, "Conflict-induced ship traffic disruptions constrain cloud sensitivity to stricter marine pollution regulations" Michael S. Diamond and Lili F. Boss https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15738910

Tropospheric NO2 from satellites Tropospheric Emission Monitoring Internet Service https://www.temis.nl/airpollution/no2.php

CLDPROP_M3_VIIRS_NOAA20 NASA VIIRS Atmosphere SIPS https://doi.org/10.5067/VIIRS/CLDPROP_M3_VIIRS_NOAA20.011

CLDPROP_M3_MODIS_AQUA NASA LAADS DAAC https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/CLDPROP_M3_MODIS_Aqua.011

Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research European Commission, Joint Research Centre https://doi.org/10.2904/JRC_DATASET_EDGAR

NOAA Extended Reconstructed SST V5 Boyin Huang et al. https://doi.org/10.7289/V5T72FNM

Datetimes and Locations of ship-tracks Hua Song https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JII4DN

Interactive computing environment

michael-s-diamond/ConflictClouds Michael S. Diamond https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16637711

Michael S. Diamond and Lili F. Boss

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Short summary
Militia attacks on ships in the Red Sea disrupted container ship traffic in 2024. We use these traffic changes to quantify how the cloud-altering properties of ship pollution decreased following sulfur regulations in 2020 with measurements of two types of ship pollution, one of which is sensitive to fuel composition and another which is not. Near Africa, cloud changes in 2024 were nearly as large as before the regulations, but only one-third as strong after accounting for increased traffic.
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