Ship Track Plumes Crisscross the Pacific

February 21, 2012
As cargo ships steam across the oceans, the tiny aerosol particles in their exhaust act as cloud nuclei, or seeds around which moisture in the atmosphere can condense
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As cargo ships steam across the oceans, the tiny aerosol particles in their exhaust act as seeds around which moisture in the atmosphere can condense. Occasionally this results in ship tracks becoming visible in cloud imagery. Taken on February 21, 2012, this GOES-15 visible image shows such tracks, some of which are 1,000 miles long.