Impact of future Arctic shipping on high-latitude black carbon deposition
This is the final version of the article. Available from American Geophysical Union (AGU) via the DOI in this record. The retreat of Arctic sea ice has led to renewed calls to exploit Arctic shipping routes. The diversion of ship traffic through the Arctic will shorten shipping routes and possibly r...
| Published in: | Geophysical Research Letters |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/33621 https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50876 |
| Summary: | This is the final version of the article. Available from American Geophysical Union (AGU) via the DOI in this record. The retreat of Arctic sea ice has led to renewed calls to exploit Arctic shipping routes. The diversion of ship traffic through the Arctic will shorten shipping routes and possibly reduce global shipping emissions. However, deposition of black carbon (BC) aerosol emitted by additional Arctic ships could cause a reduction in the albedo of snow and ice, accelerating snowmelt and sea ice loss. Here we use recently compiled Arctic shipping emission inventories for 2004 and 2050 together with a global aerosol model to quantify the contribution of future Arctic shipping to high-latitude BC deposition. Our results show that Arctic shipping in 2050 will contribute less than 1% to the total BC deposition north of 60°N due to the much greater relative contribution of BC transported from non-shipping sources at lower latitudes. We suggest that regulation of the Arctic shipping industry will be an insufficient control on high-latitude BC deposition. Key Points Contribution of Arctic shipping to high-latitude BC deposition less than 1% Extra-Arctic sources contribute much greater Arctic BC mass than local shipping Regulation of Arctic shipping unlikely to control high-latitude BC deposition. J.B. was funded by a studentship from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and by the Met Office through a CASE partnership and is now funded by a NERC grant [NE/I028858/1]. K.C. is a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award holder. A.S.is funded by a NERC grant [NE/I015612/1] and a fellowship from the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds. The Editor thanks three anonymous reviewers for their assistance in evaluating this paper. |
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