Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission

Maritime Working Group Hamburg, Germany, 25-27 September 2018

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Document title Emissions from Baltic Sea Shipping in 2017

Code 4-3

Category INF

Agenda Item 4 - Airborne emissions from ships and related measures

Submission date 14.09.2018

Submitted by Finland

Reference

Background

The Finnish Meteorological Institute has estimated exhaust gas emissions from the Baltic Sea Shipping in 2017 (see the attachment). The emission estimates for the year 2017 are based on over 5.4 billion AIS-messages sent by 23 985 different ships, of which 7 671 had an IMO registry number indicating commercial marine traffic. The AIS position reports were received by terrestrial based stations located in the Baltic Sea countries and collected to the regional HELCOM AIS data server. Emissions are generated using the Ship Traffic Emission Assessment Model (STEAM) (Jalkanen et al., 2012, 2009, Johansson et al., 2013, 2017).

For 2017, the temporal coverage was 99.3% without any significant data gaps. However, there was a significant reduction in the volume of received AIS data towards end of the year. Most of the messages originate from South-Western region of the Baltic Sea near the Danish and southern Swedish sea areas (Figure 6). For the most part of the year 2017, data flow was around 700 000 messages per hour, but data for Oct-Dec 2017 indicates 85-90% data loss. This drastic reduction in data volume occurred in all areas of the Baltic Sea and it is unlikely that it was caused by malfunction in AIS data reception. The quality of predicted emissions is unlikely to be impacted by this change, because previous tests with 95% data loss have had only minor influence on final results. However, further work is needed to investigate the impact further.

Emissions from Baltic Sea Shipping in 2017

Total emissions from all vessels in the Baltic Sea in 2017 were 315 kt of NOx, 10 kt of SOx, 10 kt of PM, 22 kt of CO and 15 Mt of CO2. The CO2 amount corresponds to 4.9 million tonnes of fuel, of which 30% was associated to auxiliary engines. These emissions do not include any contribution from inland waterway traffic.

The most significant contribution to emissions can be associated with RoPax vessels, tankers, cargo ships and container ships. In terms of fuel consumption, the respective shares for these vessel types in the presented order are 1200 (-3.8% decrease from previous year), 1000 (-8.3%), 891 (+6.2%) and 780 (+0.6%) kt of fuel consumed.

The emissions of some pollutants have decreased, like NOx (-2.3%) and CO (-1.3%) but emissions of SOx (+0.6%), PM (+0.4%) and CO2 (+0.4%) have slightly increased, when compared to year 2016. The emissions of CO2 from non-IMO registered vessels were 5.0% of total CO2 emitted from ships. During the 2017 study period, the number of IMO-registered vessels has decreased by -4%.

Overall transport work has decreased by -8.4% while the total travelling distance of IMO-registered vessels has decreased by -4.4%. The transport work of containership segment decreased by -8% whereas the transport work of tankers and cargo ships decreased by -13% and -2%. For RoPax vessels a decrease of -11% was observed.

More detailed information can be found in the attached report of the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

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Action requested

The HELCOM Maritime 18 Meeting is invited to take note of the information.

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Emissions from Baltic Sea shipping in 2017

Authors: Jukka-Pekka Jalkanen, Lasse Johansson

Address: Atmospheric Composition Research, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Erik Palmen’s Square 1, FI-00560

Helsinki, Finland

Key Messages

1. Total emissions from all vessels in the Baltic Sea in 2017 were 315 kt of NOx, 10 kt of

SOx, 10 kt of PM, 22 kt of CO and 15 Mt of CO2. The CO2 amount corresponds to 4.9

million tonnes of fuel, of which 30% was associated to auxiliary engines. These emissions do

not include any contribution from inland waterway traffic.

2. The most significant contribution to emissions can be associated with RoPax vessels,

tankers, cargo ships and container ships. In terms of fuel consumption, the respective

shares for these vessel types in the presented order are 1200 (-3.8% decrease from previous

year), 1000 (-8.3%), 891 (+6.2%) and 780 (+0.6%) kt of fuel consumed.

3. The emissions of some pollutants have decreased, like NOx (-2.3%) and CO (-1.3%) but

emissions of SOx (+0.6%), PM (+0.4%) and CO2 (+0.4%) have slightly increased, when

compared to year 2016. The emissions of CO2 from non-IMO registered vessels were 5.0%

of total CO2 emitted from ships. During the 2017 study period, the number of IMO-registered

vessels has decreased by -4%.

4. Overall transport work has decreased by -8.4% while the total travelling distance of

IMO-registered vessels have decreased by -4.4%. The transport work of containership

segment decreased by -8% whereas the transport work of tankers and cargo ships decreased

by -13% and -2%. For RoPax vessels a decrease of -11% was observed.

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1. Emissions of atmospheric pollutants Emissions of SOx, PM and CO2 have slightly increased from 2016. At the same time the transport

work has decreased. In general, transport work done by the Baltic Sea fleet has decreased from the

previous year (-8.4%), but emissions of SOx, PM and CO2 have increased slightly (+0.5% on

average). Largest decreases in transport work were observed with oil tankers and vehicle carriers.

Emissions of NOx have remained relatively stable for the last five years. Figure 1 illustrates the annual

emission totals with colored symbols (old STEAM2 results) and lines (new STEAM3 model version).

All cargo carrying vessel types indicate decreased vessel activity, but largest decrease was seen with

the tanker class (-13%). Also, vehicle carriers (-11%) and containerships (-8%) performed less

transport work than in the previous year.

Figure 1 Emissions and the transport work of Baltic Sea shipping during 2006-2017. The colored

symbols represent NOx, SOx, PM2.5, and CO2 emissions and transport work obtained with STEAM2

model for the period 2006-2015. The corresponding color lines indicate same quantities obtained with a

new STEAM3 model version for years 2014-2017.

The summary of results for 2017 has been collected to Table 1. In Table 1, the estimated annual total

emissions are shown for different parts of the Baltic Sea and by vessel type. Most of the emissions

are produced in the main body of the Baltic Sea although the much smaller areas of Kattegat and the

Gulf of Finland constitute a fair share of the total emissions. The total number of vessels was 23 985

in 2017, of which almost 28% were unidentified vessels. Over 72% of AIS targets in the Baltic Sea

were not IMO-registered.

Table 1 Summary of atmospheric fuel consumption, atmospheric emissions and transport work for the

Baltic Sea fleet during 2017.

Baltic - 2017 MAIN_FUEL AUX_FUEL NOx SOx PM25 CO CO2 TRAVEL TRANSPORT WORK VOC SHIPS

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[tonnes] [tonnes] [tonnes] [tonnes] [tonnes] [tonnes] [ktonnes] [10^3 km] [10^6 tonne km] [tonnes]

All 3 446 1 498 315 395 10 042 9 663 21 886 15 029 133 216 900 189 2 636 23 985

IMO 3 369 1 329 301 925 9 528 9 199 20 276 14 280 105 106 898 993 2 517 7 671

Baltic Proper 2 045 662 176 637 5 478 5 214 11 964 8 228 76 349 517 524 1 451 0

Kattegat 633 346 65 055 2 000 1 942 4 518 2 976 28 517 200 449 518 0

Gulf of Finland 435 349 48 001 1 587 1 567 3 452 2 382 13 931 131 509 414 0

Gulf of Bothnia 307 107 22 207 841 819 1 670 1 259 12 505 44 198 220 0

Gulf of Riga 27 33 3 499 136 122 282 183 1 915 6 509 32 0

RoPax_vessels 1 005 193 71 255 2 417 2 196 4 095 3 641 14 426 27 632 655 228

Vehicle_carriers 372 65 27 321 834 693 1 603 1 326 7 103 51 369 230 260

Cargo_ships 636 255 57 860 1 830 1 814 4 726 2 708 40 774 310 111 471 3 724

Container_ships 477 304 53 596 1 602 1 642 3 694 2 372 11 855 149 580 420 501

Tankers 655 347 70 174 2 050 2 115 4 311 3 043 18 916 361 498 513 1 827

Passenger_ships 13 13 1 433 53 47 140 78 3 075 0 13 337

Cruisers 119 36 8 752 306 276 593 471 1 263 0 94 93

Fishing_vessels 19 32 2 834 105 97 271 155 5 152 0 25 594

Service_ships 15 41 3 166 116 113 303 170 2 097 0 31 410

Unknown 12 100 5 454 235 203 755 341 6 744 0 52 6 706

Misc 123 115 13 553 493 468 1 395 724 21 814 0 133 9 305

There were 7 671 AIS targets with a valid IMO number and 16 314 targets which transmitted only

MMSI information. Searching vessel databases and internet with MMSI codes yielded no data for 6

706 targets and these represented 6.1% of AIS data received in the Helcom 2017 dataset. For the

remaining 9 608 MMSI targets closest match (physical dimension, installed engine size, design speed)

of the STEAM vessel database was used. Using data from similar, closest matching vessels to fill the

gaps in ship technical data should provide a more reliable estimate of the vessel fuel consumption

and emissions.

Figure 2 illustrates the CO2 emissions from ships in the Baltic Sea area during 2017. The fuels used

in by the Baltic Sea fleet were estimated as 88% (MGO), 0.1% (LNG) and rest are HFO and MDO.

Heavy fuel with high sulphur content were used in 85 vessels, which are equipped with scrubbers.

Most of the scrubbers are of open loop type and approximately 70 million cubic meters of scrubber

wash water was released to the sea.

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Figure 2 Geographical distribution of CO2 emissions from Baltic Sea shipping during year 2017. All

values are reported as mass (kg) of CO2 emitted inside a grid cell of 15.65 km2.

Swedish, German and Danish fleets have large number of vessels using AIS transponders,

representing over 50% of all transmitters in the area. Most of these vessels are small, because the

transport work share for these three flags are 2.8%, 2.4% and 4.9%, respectively (Figure 3).

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Figure 3 Vessel flag grouping for transport work, number of ships and atmospheric emissions. All

values are in percent from total. Swedish vessels represent 22.4% from all AIS targets. Most of these

are small, because the transport work and CO2 shares are 3% and 10%.

RoPax vessels are responsible for 3.6 million tonnes of CO2 emitted, which makes them the largest

CO2 source in the Baltic Sea. Tankers are the second largest source with 3.0 million tonnes of CO2

emitted. These two vessel classes represent the opposite ends of performance when unit emissions

are considered. RoPax vessels have the highest unit emissions (132 g per ton km) whereas the tankers

have the lowest (8.4 grams per ton km) unit emissions. It should be noted that the tanker class

indicated in this report contains crude oil, oil product, chemical, LNG and LPG tankers together.

Further, the unit emission calculation only considers cargo carrying capacity, passenger capacity is

not included.

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Figure 4 Emission shares of different kinds of vessels in the Baltic Sea fleet (left vertical axis, in thousand

tonnes of CO2 emitted). Unit emissions in grams per ton kilometer are indicated with the right vertical

axis. The three largest contributions to CO2 emissions come from RoPax, tanker and dry cargo ships.

RoPax vessels have largest unit emissions, whereas tankers have lower unit emissions. It should be noted

that only cargo carrying capacity has been considered and passenger capacity does not contribute to

unit emissions calculation.

Weekly temporal profile for cargo ships shows little seasonal variation. Passenger vessels on regular

schedules operate throughout the year, but cruise vessels only operate during May-September. Similar

profile also occurs with small vessels, which are listed in Figure 5 as Unknown class. For these small

craft commercial vessel databases do not have vessel specifications, but their contribution to CO2

emissions is small (2.3%).

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Figure 5 Weekly temporal profile of ship emitted CO2 in the Baltic Sea area during 2017. Cargo and

regular passenger traffic continues throughout the whole year whereas passenger cruise and small vessel

traffic mostly occur during weeks 17-39 (May-September).

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References

Jalkanen, J.-P., Johansson, L., Kuukkonen, J., Brink, A., Kalli, J. and Stipa, T.: Extension of an

assessment model of ship traffic exhaust emissions for particulate matter and carbon monoxide,

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 2641–2659, doi:10.5194/acp-12-2641-2012, 2012.

Jalkanen, J. P., Brink, A., Kalli, J., Pettersson, H., Kukkonen, J. and Stipa, T.: A modelling system

for the exhaust emissions of marine traffic and its application in the Baltic Sea area, Atmos. Chem.

Phys. Discuss., 9(4), 15339–15373, doi:10.5194/acpd-9-15339-2009, 2009.

Johansson, L., Jalkanen, J. P., Kalli, J. and Kukkonen, J.: The evolution of shipping emissions and

the costs of regulation changes in the northern EU area, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13(22), 11375–11389,

doi:10.5194/acp-13-11375-2013, 2013.

Johansson, L., Jalkanen, J. P. and Kukkonen, J.: Global assessment of shipping emissions in 2015 on

a high spatial and temporal resolution, Atmos. Environ., 167, 403–415,

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2017.08.042, 2017.

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Data

The emission estimates for the year 2017 are based on over 5.4 billion AIS-messages sent by 23 985

different ships, of which 7 671 had an IMO registry number indicating commercial marine traffic.

The AIS position reports were received by terrestrial base stations in the Baltic Sea countries and

collected to regional HELCOM AIS data server. Emissions are generated using the Ship Traffic

Emission Assessment Model (STEAM; (Jalkanen et al., 2012, 2009, Johansson et al., 2013, 2017).

For 2017, the temporal coverage was 99.3% without any significant data gaps. However, there was a

significant reduction in the volume of received AIS data towards end of the year. Most of the

messages originate from South-Western region of the Baltic Sea near the Danish and southern

Swedish sea areas (Figure 6). For the most part of the year 2017, data flow was around 700 000

messages per hour, but data for Oct-Dec 2017 indicates 85-90% data loss. This drastic reduction in

data volume occurred in all areas of the Baltic Sea and it is unlikely that it was caused by malfunction

in AIS data reception. The quality of predicted emissions is unlikely to be impacted by this change,

because previous tests with 95% data loss have had only minor influence on final results. However,

further work is needed to investigate the impact further.

Figure 6 AIS-data hourly coverage in different parts of the modelling region for 2017.

Metadata

Fuel and vessel operational procedures can have a large impact on exhaust emissions. Emission

factors for ships are in accordance with the latest literature and are believed to represent a reasonable

estimate of the resulting emissions. Marine currents, fouling and sea ice can have a significant impact

on emissions, but these effects have not been accounted for in this study.

Some uncertainty in predicted emissions arises from the large number of small vessels for which

technical details are unavailable or incomplete. However, the internet contains some basic vessel

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characteristics even for such small and unknown ships1 and by using an automated vessel

characteristics extraction routine, it has been verified that the group of unknown ships are in fact

small vessels and as such do not cause significant margins of error for the modelled annual emission

totals. Nevertheless, only a fraction of recreational boating activity can be studied with AIS.

According to a recent estimate2, there exists over 250 000 boats in more than 3 000 locations in the

Baltic Sea area which are not required to carry AIS onboard. It is likely that the total number of AIS

targets observed during the year 2017 represents about 10% of the total waterborne vessels, but

describes the activity of commercial ship traffic very well because AIS is mandatory for large vessels.

The STEAM3 model code has been updated to include discharges to water and underwater noise

emissions. Large number of new properties can be reported, ranging from scrubber wash water to

anti-fouling paint releases. Modeling tools for vessel noise have been developed within the BONUS

SHEBA project are ready to be applied as part of regular HELCOM ship emission reporting. New

quantities have been calculated only for year 2017, for now, but data for earlier years can also be

produced which facilitates observing trends in various emissions.

1For example, www.marinetraffic.com and www.vesselfinder.com usually yield the ship type and physical dimensions

for vessels that have no IMO-number.. 2 Sustainable Shipping and Environment of the Baltic Sea region (SHEBA) project, Deliverable 1.3 “Activity data for the

Baltic pleasure boats”.