Six charts help to explain 2024's freakish temperatures

Re:Six charts help to explain 2024's freakish temperatures by stephen_g on Saturday May 18, 2024 @10:25AM (#40399330)

I’ve seen some people putting out charts showing the kind of effect that the massive reduction in sulphur content in shipping fuel is having, and this is the first El Niño we’ve had since that happened (around 2020). It is an improvement, but the sulphur dioxide pollution had the side-effect of basically masking some of the global warming that had already happened by blocking some of the solar irradiance, especially over the ocean.

This is apparently changing stuff like cloud formation and seems like it might be a big part of the puzzle. Of course, reducing this pollution is overall good, even if one of the side effects of it being in the atmosphere was somewhat positive…

EDIT: Although some analysis such as this - https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin... - suggests while there is a big effect, the effect shouldn’t be anywhere as large as what we’re seeing.

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Re:Six charts help to explain 2024's freakish temperatures by gumby on Saturday May 18, 2024 @10:54AM (#40399532)

Those sulphur emissions were not large by atmospheric standards (the entire shipping industry “only” emits about 800 Mt of CO2 a year, not all of which even comes from high-sulphur bunker fuel). However the SO2 quantity does have severe environmental impact (the first emissions trading scheme, back in the 90s, was to control SO2 emissions), in this case increasing the acidity of the oceans and coastal regions thanks to so-called acid rain.

The real tragedy is that the scrubbers remove the SO2 from the exhaust and…deposit it in the ocean.

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