IT IS not just our reliance on gas-guzzling cars that is messing with the climate. Exhaust fumes from ships are making clouds colder and brighter - and that makes it colder and cloudier in heavy shipping areas.

Abhay Devasthale and colleagues from the University of Hamburg, Germany, studied six years of data from satellites over Europe to assess how ship emissions affect clouds. In areas where emissions increased over that time they saw an increase in cloud reflectivity of up to 1.5 per cent and a drop in cloud-top temperatures of up to 2 °C (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2005gl024470).

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