WP 2 Air pollution

In SHEBA’s work package 2 exhaust gas emissions from ships and their contribution to air quality in the Baltic Sea region are investigated. The most important pollutants are nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and particulate matter. In addition, nutrient deposition, e.g. from nitrogen containing aerosol particles and acid deposition are calculated to be further used in ecosystem models in work package 3.

Atmospheric chemistry transport model systems are the main tools that are used in the Air Pollution work package. The models are fed with shipping emissions from work package 1. This includes current emissions as well scenario emissions for different developments in the shipping sector. Contributions from other emission sectors like industry, traffic, agriculture and households are considered as well. This is of high importance because atmospheric chemistry is highly non-linear and all interactions between different pollutants need to be considered. The scenarios will include the implementation of a nitrogen emission control area for new built ships and the wide use of alternative fuels like liquefied natural gas.

SHEBA looks at regional as well as city scale effects. Four harbor cities at the Baltic Sea coast, Gothenburg, Rostock, Gdansk and Riga, will be investigated in more detail. Here, model systems with finer resolution will be applied to better account for effects of ships at quay. By this, new developments in emission reduction technologies in ports, e.g. onshore power supply, can be evaluated.