In addition, the air over the northeastern Indian Ocean is relatively pristine. The shapes of landmasses force ships into narrow paths in the Indian Ocean, while ships in the Atlantic and Pacific tend to spread out over a broad areas as they navigate around storms. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans also have heavy ship traffic, but OMI doesn’t pick up NO 2 pollution tracks because the shipping routes are less consistent. These aren’t the only busy shipping lanes in the world, but they are the most apparent because ship traffic is concentrated along narrow, well-established lanes. Other shipping lanes that run through the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea also show elevated NO 2 levels, as do routes from Singapore to points in China. The NO 2 signal is most prominent in an Indian Ocean shipping lane between Sri Lanka and Singapore, appearing as a distinct orange line against (lighter) background levels of NO 2. The map above is based on OMI measurements acquired between 20. Combustion engines, such as those that propel ships and motor vehicles, are a major source of NO 2 pollution.
NO 2, is among a group of highly-reactive oxides of nitrogen, known as NO x, that can lead to the production of fine particles and ozone that damage the human cardiovascular and respiratory systems. They are a visible manifestation of pollution from ship exhaust, and scientists can now see that ships have a more subtle, almost invisible, signature as well.ĭata from the Dutch and Finnish-built Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite show long tracks of elevated nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) levels along certain shipping routes. These bright, linear trails amidst the cloud layers are created by particles and gases from ships. For more than a decade, scientists have observed “ship tracks” in natural-color satellite imagery of the ocean.
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