Ship emissions and the use of current air cleaning technology: contributions to air pollution and acidification in the Baltic Sea

Claremar, Björn; Haglund, Karin; Rutgersson, Anna

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-901-2017

Articles | Volume 8, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-901-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Multiple drivers for Earth system changes in the Baltic Sea...

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-901-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 8, issue 4

Research article

|

13 Oct 2017

Research article |

| 13 Oct 2017

Ship emissions and the use of current air cleaning technology: contributions to air pollution and acidification in the Baltic Sea

Björn Claremar, Karin Haglund, and Anna Rutgersson

Download

Final revised paper (published on 13 Oct 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Oct 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of Haglund et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Jan 2017
RC2: 'Anonymous review report provided as plane text below', Anonymous Referee #2, 08 Jan 2017
AC1: 'response to reviewers comments from authors', Anna Rutgersson, 08 Feb 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (09 Feb 2017) by Marcus Reckermann

AR by Anna Rutgersson on behalf of the Authors (19 May 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Jun 2017) by Marcus Reckermann

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (28 Jun 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Comments to the revised manuscript:

„Present and future variation of Contribution from Ship Emissions to the concentration and deposition of air pollutants in the Baltic Sea“
by
Björn Claremar, Karin Haglund, Anna Rutgersson

General comments:
The paper has been intensively rewritten following suggestions by the reviewers. In parts (i.e. in the results section) it has been substantially extended (which almost calls for a new review).
Overall, the quality of the paper has improved, and the results presented deserve being published.

Nevertheless, there are still points, which need further improvement:

Section ‘Introduction’, page 10, line 13ff:
Work done by J15 and differences to the present study are now better explained, but a clear statement, which justifies the present work is still missing. It might be referred to the benefit of many more meteorological years analysed here.

Section 2.2 ‘EMEP Model Data’, line 29 ff:
It is stated that several modifications have been made concerning aerosols. State, why you have made these modifications. Sounds substantial. Is it now not the standard EMEP model any more? Provide references for e.g. new parameterisations and justify newly selected rates.

Line 21: is there a reference for harbour activity questionnaires?

Section 3.4 ‘Deposition scenarios of ship emissions‘ is still not easy to read, it appears a bit confusing. Try to make points clearer and justify assumptions (like e.g. the ‘50%’ in line 24 on page 10).

Section 4.2, page 19, lines 5 and 6: it reads like year 2011 is compared to year 2011 and judged to be the same (??); what ‘distribution’ is meant?

Figures:
Figures 13 to 17 need to be redrawn, in many of the Baltic Sea coastline is hidden behind intense foreground colours, and therefore the geographical orientation is not easy. (technical issue)

In figure 6 sub-plot for BB: scenarios 4 and 5 are missing. Why?

Language:
Language issues have been improved, but there still are many omitted definite articles, plural and missing little words (too numerous to be listed here; i.e. sec. 4.2). Here the paper needs careful language editing.

Hide

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (04 Jul 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This version of the article is much better and can be published after further improvements to the text (see detailed comments below):

A general note on figures - please make all coastlines a thicker and/or different colour. I found that the combination of coastlines and contour lines all in the same line style very disorientating when looking at the plots.

Page 2, Line 13 Should be sulphur 'dioxide'

Page 2, Line 27 should be 'both act as acidifying compounds'

Page 4, Line 2 typo - I think 'hand' should be 'and'

Page 4, Line 9 This sentence does not make sense:'Concentrations and depositions were analysed valid for 2010 and show 9 concentrations along the shipping routes for concentrations but a significant spread for depositions.'

Page 4, Line 19 Comma required after 'cleaning technologies'

Page 5, Line 2 Remove the word 'the' from between 'In' and 'Gauss et al., 2015'

Page 5, Line 5 Replace 'underestimates' with 'underestimated'

Page 13, Line 12 Suggest changing the text to say: 'the Baltic, but the levels will stay low.'

Page 14, Line 5 remove word 'is'

Page 15, Line 17 Replace 'implantation' with implementation'

Page 16, Line 3 remove word 'is'

Page 16, Line 11/12 TIER III 'will be introduced in 2021.'

Page 17, Line 13/14 I assume that 4x10^-6 and 7x10^-6 refer to pH changes? This needs to be clarified as it is not clear at the moment.

Page 20, Line 1 Replace 'underestimating' with 'underestimation'

Page 20, Line 4 Change to 'guidelines for the annual average exposure for PM2.5 = 10 ug m-3, PM10 = 20 ug m-3...' (etc)

Page 21, Line 8 Change to 'was a maximum of around 20% and, for PM10, 13%.'

Page 21, Line 9 Remove 'as'

Page 22, Line 20 Change to 'are in-line'

Page 24, Line 10 Change to 'Similar deposition scenarios were used in Turner et al. (2017),'

Page 24, Lines 13/14 This needs rephrasing. I think the authors are saying that the impact of NECA is greater when scrubbers are not in use? i.e. that scrubbers offset the benefits of NECA?

Page 24, Line 18 Replace 'but' with 'which is'

Page 25, Line 22 Change to 'Stricter regulations of sulphur content in maritime fuel and increased use of other fuels will result in...'

Page 25, Line 36 Change to 'was a maximum of around 20% and, for PM10, 13%.'

Hide

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (07 Jul 2017) by Marcus Reckermann

AR by Anna Rutgersson on behalf of the Authors (09 Aug 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (24 Aug 2017) by Marcus Reckermann

AR by Anna Rutgersson on behalf of the Authors (03 Sep 2017) Manuscript

Short summary

Shipping is the most cost-effective option for the global transport of goods, and over 90 % of world trade is carried by sea. The shipping sector, however, contributes to emissions of pollutants into the air and water. Estimates of deposition and near-surface concentrations of sulfur, nitrogen, and particulate matter originating from shipping in the Baltic Sea region have been developed for present conditions concerning traffic intensity and fuel as well as for future scenarios until 2050.