For the past few decades, the entire planet has been conducting an experiment that could save us from climate change disaster. It’s the kind of experiment that would never be allowed to happen under normal circumstances, due to how dangerous it is and how catastrophic the results could be.
In fact, we didn’t even realize we were conducting it until recently. In 2020, the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) imposed a regulation requiring ships to cut down on sulfur pollution emitted by the fuel it burnt by more than 80 percent to improve air quality. A few years afterwards, scientists began studying the clouds formed from the exhaust of these vessels known as ship tracks.
What they found was a double-edged sword. While the number of ship tracks were greatly reduced (indicating that the IMO regulation was working), this also resulted in something else: the warming of the planet. It turned out that the sulfur dioxide being emitted by the ships wasn’t simply making air quality worse; it was also seeding low-lying ocean clouds—brightening them and causing them to reflect sunlight away from the planet and cool things down.
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