Impact of Ship Emissions on Air Quality in the Greater Bay Area in China under the Latest Global Marine Fuel Regulation
Jinghao Zhai, Guangyuan Yu, Jingyi Zhang, Shao Shi, Yupeng Yuan, Shenglan Jiang, Chunbo Xing, Baohua Cai, Yaling Zeng, Yixiang Wang, Antai Zhang, Yujie Zhang, Yujie Zhang, Tzung‐May Fu, Lei Zhu, Huizhong Shen, Jianhuai Ye, Chen Wang, Shu Tao, Mei Li, Yan Zhang, Yan Zhang, Xin Yang
Abstract
As the main anthropogenic source in open seas and coastal areas, ship emissions impact the climate, air quality, and human health. The latest marine fuel regulation with a sulfur content limit of 0.5% went into effect globally on January 1, 2020. Investigations of ship emissions after fuel switching are necessary. In this study, online field measurements at an urban coastal site and modeling simulations were conducted to detect the impact of ship emissions on air quality in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) in China under new fuel regulation. By utilizing a high mass-resolution single particle mass spectrometer, the vanadium(V) signal was critically identified and was taken as a robust indicator for ship-emitted particles (with relative peak area > 0.1). The considerable number fractions of high-V particles (up to 30–40% during ship plumes) indicated that heavy fuel oils via simple desulfurization or blending processes with low-sulfur fuels were extensively used in the GBA to meet the global 0.5% sulfur cap. Our results showed that ship-emitted particulate matter and NO x contributed up to 21.4% and 39.5% to the ambient, respectively, in the summertime, significantly affecting the air quality in the GBA. The sea-land breeze circulation also played an important role in the transport pattern of ship-emitted pollutants in the GBA.