For decades this area has been kept relatively cool by sulfur emissions from ships.
But this changed in 2020.
On January 1st 2020 new shipping regulation came into effect (#IMO2020), decreasing the maximum amount of sulfur in shipping fuels from 3.5% to 0.5%.
From 2020 we see a rapid increase in the amount of solar radiation that's being absorbed by the region highlighted above.
If this trend continues that could mean that the Northern Hemisphere mid latitudes (where many of us live) will warm much more rapidly.
It could also impact global and regional weather systems, like the monsoons.
More extreme weather is likely.
See my earlier thread for more details:
Oceans are already warming more rapidly:
Sea Surface Temperatures have spiked for the Northern Hemisphere Mid Latitudes.
In 2022 these were 1°C above the 1979-2000 average.
It takes a lot of heat to warm the oceans.
This all coincidences with a record rate of global warming.
I wrote more about that here:
Air pollution has also been hiding the precipitation increase of global warming:
"When GHG and aerosol forcings are combined ... the global mean precipitation increase due to GHG warming has, until recently, been completely masked by aerosol drying."
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
Global warming is mainly ocean warming.
This is part of the reasons why the 80% reduction in sulfur emissions from shipping significantly increases global warming.
The peak global cooling/dimming effect from shipping is uncertain, but in scale potentially equal to the warming effect of ~20 years of current GHG emissions:
Global sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions from international shipping since 1850:
To summarize:
More on regional aerosol changes here.
With many (peer reviewed) sources at the end.
More thoughts here:
We covered all this in detail in our Global warming in the pipeline paper and in the press conference thereof.
I recommend downloading in the PDF if you'd like to skip all the complicated physics:
academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3…
x.com/LeonSimons8/st…
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