Impact of shipping emissions on air pollution and pollutant deposition over the Barents Sea

• Published in: Environmental Pollution
• Main Authors: Raut, Jean-Christophe, Law, Kathy S., Onishi, Tatsuo, Daskalakis, Nikos, Marelle, Louis
• Other Authors: TROPO - LATMOS, Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratory for Modeling and Observation of the Earth System (LAMOS), Institut für Umweltphysik Bremen (IUP), Universität Bremen-Universität Bremen, The authors acknowledge the support of the ICE-ARC programme from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme grant number 603 887. Computer analyses benefited from access to IDRIS HPC re-sources (GENCI allocations A007017141 and A009017141) and the IPSLmesoscale computing center (CICLAD: Calcul Intensif pour le CLimat, l’Atmosphere et la Dynamique).
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: Future shipping diversion routes; Barents sea; Aerosol deposition; Regional chemistry-transport model; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Arctic; Barents Sea; Norway; Northeast Passage; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://insu.hal.science/insu-03526271; https://insu.hal.science/insu-03526271v2/document; https://insu.hal.science/insu-03526271v2/file/1-s2.0-S026974912200046X-main.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2022.118832

International audience Arctic warming leading to reduced summertime sea-ice is likely to lead to increased local shipping especially along the Northeast Passage near the northern coasts of Norway and Russia, which are shorter than the traditional southerly routes. Here, the regional chemistry-transport model WRF-Chem is used to examine the effects of shipping emissions on levels of air pollutants and deposition fluxes over the Barents Sea both for present-day and future conditions, based on a high growth scenario. Present-day shipping emissions are found to have already substantial effects on ozone concentrations, but limited effects on sulphate and nitrate aerosols. Predicted future changes in ozone are also important, particularly in regions with low nitrogen oxide concentrations, and results are sensitive to the way in which diversion shipping is distributed due to non-linear effects on photochemical ozone production. Whilst modest future increases in sulphate and nitrate aerosols are predicted, large enhancements in dry deposition of sulphur dioxide and wet deposition of nitrogen compounds to the Barents Sea are predicted. Such levels of future nitrogen deposition would represent a significant atmospheric source of oceanic nitrogen affecting sensitive marine ecosystems.