The Icon of the Seas, largest cruise ship in the world, built in Meyer Turku shipyard, Finland

Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 26 September 2022 at 16:13:36 UTC
Sentinel-2 MSI acquired on 04 October 2022 at 09:50:29 UTC
Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 08 October 2022 at 16:13:36 UTC
Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 20 October 2022 at 16:13:36 UTC
Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 01 November 2022 at 16:13:36 UTC
Author(s): Sentinel Vision team, VisioTerra, France - svp@visioterra.fr
Keyword(s): Climate change, tourism, infrastructure, pollution, marine traffic, Finland
Fig. 1 - S1 (26.09.2022->01.11.2022) - Meyer Turku shipyard is assembling the next largest cruise ship in the world.
Under construction in Finland at the Meyer Turku shipyard, which is completing its assembly, the Icon of the Seas is 365 meters long and has a tonnage of 250 800 tons. It will thus surpass the current holder of the title of largest cruise ship in the world, the Wonder of the Seas, which was built in Saint-Nazaire. Its capacity will be 7600 passengers at maximum occupancy, 10 000 persons crew included.
Fig. 2 - S2 (04.10.2022) - Powered by liquefied natural gas and fuel cells, it will join a fleet of similar floating amusement parks in 2024.
Nitrogen oxide emissions from maritime sources - 20% of which are due to cruise ships - exceeded road emissions for the first time in 2018. Instead of diesel, Icon of the Seas will be powered by more efficient engines using liquefied natural gas (LNG) as newer cruise ships to answer this issue.

Yet it is a cruise ship with 7 swimming pools, 6 water slides, the tallest waterfall, the tallest water slide, the largest waterpark, an artificial surf pool, an ice skating rink. Even without taking into account home-port travels, an 8-day stay with 48 hours of stopovers, the carbon footprint of a standard cruise is estimated by environmentalists at 4.5 tons of CO2 emitted per person, over twice what would be sustainable to consume per person per year. Due to the high gain in efficiency of LNG and fuel cells this ship will use 67 500 kW, little for a cruise ship of 10 000 but enough to power a city of 130 000 Europeans.