Sentinel tracks ships' dirty emissions from orbit

The EU's new satellite pollution-tracker will be a powerful tool to monitor vessels' emissions.

The new EU satellite tasked with tracking dirty air has demonstrated how it will become a powerful tool to monitor emissions from shipping.

Sentinel-5P was launched in October last year and this week completed its in-orbit commissioning phase.

But already it is clear the satellite's data will be transformative.

This latest image reveals the trail of nitrogen dioxide left in the air as ships move in and out of the Mediterranean Sea.

The "highway" that the vessels use to navigate the Strait of Gibraltar is easily discerned by S5P's Tropomi instrument.

"You really see a straight line because all these ships follow approximately the same route," explained Pepijn Veefkind, Tropomi's principal investigator from the Dutch met office (KNMI).

"In this case, we also looked into how many big ships there are in the region [at the time], and there's really not that many - around 20 or so, we estimate - but each one is putting out a lot of NO₂."

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2HQ43gv