Weatherwatch: sulphur clouds make shipping a not so secret polluter

Tracking technology has been developed to reduce emissions in climate change fight

The type of fuel used by ships has a substantial effect on cloud formation. Exhausts from dirty heavy oils leave a telltale trail of such dense cloud that they can be tracked from space. While ship emissions contain many chemicals including black carbon, researchers have discovered that it is the sulphate aerosols formed from the sulphur in the oil that is responsible for the clouds that sometimes trail behind ships for hundreds of miles.

The tracking technology was developed because researchers are trying to discover what effect this pollution is having on climate change and rainfall but also it will help enforce new regulations to curb these emissions.