Aircraft emission mitigation by changing route altitude: A multi-model estimate of aircraft NOx emission impact on O3 photochemistry

Søvde, O. A.; Matthes, Sigrun; Skowron, Agnieszka; Iachetti, D.; Lim, Ling L.; Owen, Bethan; Hodnebrog, Øivind; Genova, Glauco Di; Pitari, Giovanni; Lee, David S.; Myhre, Gunnar; Isaksen, I. S. A.

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2014.06.049

Cited by 58 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…Nowadays, flight trajectories are optimized with respect to time and economic costs (fuel, crew, other operating costs) primarily by taking advantage of tail winds, e.g., jet streams, while the climate-optimized routing should optimize flight trajectories such that released aircraft emissions lead to a minimum climate impact. Earlier studies investigated the effect of systematic flight altitude changes on the climate impact (Koch et al, 2011;Schumann et al, 2011;Frömming et al, 2012;Søvde et al, 2014). They confirmed that the changed altitude has a strong effect on the reduction of climate impact.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Air traffic simulation in chemistry-climate model EMAC 2.41: AirTraf 1.0

et al. 2016

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Abstract. Mobility is becoming more and more important to society and hence air transportation is expected to grow further over the next decades. Reducing anthropogenic climate impact from aviation emissions and building a climatefriendly air transportation system are required for a sustainable development of commercial aviation. A climate optimized routing, which avoids climate-sensitive regions by rerouting horizontally and vertically, is an important measure for climate impact reduction. The idea includes a number of different routing strategies (routing options) and shows a great potential for the reduction. To evaluate this, the impact of not only CO 2 but also non-CO 2 emissions must be considered. CO 2 is a long-lived gas, while non-CO 2 emissions are short-lived and are inhomogeneously distributed. This study introduces AirTraf (version 1.0) that performs global air traffic simulations, including effects of local weather conditions on the emissions. AirTraf was developed as a new submodel of the ECHAM5/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) model. Air traffic information comprises Eurocontrol's Base of Aircraft Data (BADA Revision 3.9) and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) engine performance data. Fuel use and emissions are calculated by the total energy model based on the BADA methodology and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR) fuel flow method. The flight trajectory optimization is performed by a genetic algorithm (GA) with respect to a selected routing option. In the model development phase, benchmark tests were performed for the great circle and flight time routing options.The first test showed that the great circle calculations were accurate to −0.004 %, compared to those calculated by the Movable Type script. The second test showed that the optimal solution found by the algorithm sufficiently converged to the theoretical true-optimal solution. The difference in flight time between the two solutions is less than 0.01 %. The dependence of the optimal solutions on the initial set of solutions (called population) was analyzed and the influence was small (around 0.01 %). The trade-off between the accuracy of GA optimizations and computational costs is clarified and the appropriate population and generation (one iteration of GA) sizing is discussed. The results showed that a large reduction in the number of function evaluations of around 90 % can be achieved with only a small decrease in the accuracy of less than 0.1 %. Finally, AirTraf simulations are demonstrated with the great circle and the flight time routing options for a typical winter day. The 103 trans-Atlantic flight plans were used, assuming an Airbus A330-301 aircraft. The results confirmed that AirTraf simulates the air traffic properly for the two routing options. In addition, the GA successfully found the time-optimal flight trajectories for the 103 airport pairs, taking local weather conditions into account. The consistency check for the AirTraf simulations confirmed that calculated flight time, fuel consumption, NO ...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Air traffic simulation in chemistry-climate model EMAC 2.41: AirTraf 1.0

et al. 2016

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“…This vertical distribution allows no lightning emissions above the top of a convective plume, and is the same distribution as that used in Oslo CTM3. Søvde et al [24] showed that compared with the old vertical distribution, the new vertical distribution of lightning NOx emissions reduces NOx in the UTLS and this resulted in a larger effect of aircraft emissions in this region.…”

Section: Oslo Ctm2mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Examples of the effects of different large-scale transport in global models on the calculated distribution of tracers from aircraft are discussed in Rogers et al [70]. A complete discussion of the background NOx chemistry in the models, along with the treatment of anthropogenic and natural emissions of NOx and other tropospheric ozone precursors (CO and VOC), i.e., fossil fuel, biomass burning and lightning are discussed in Søvde et al [24].…”

Section: Ozone Photochemistrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impact of Coupled NOx/Aerosol Aircraft Emissions on Ozone Photochemistry and Radiative Forcing

et al. 2015

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Three global chemistry-transport models (CTM) are used to quantify the radiative forcing (RF) from aviation NOx emissions, and the resultant reductions in RF from coupling NOx to aerosols via heterogeneous chemistry. One of the models calculates the changes due to aviation black carbon (BC) and sulphate aerosols and their direct RF, as well as the BC indirect effect on cirrus cloudiness. The surface area density of sulphate aerosols is then passed to the other models to compare the resulting photochemical perturbations on NOx through heterogeneous chemical reactions. The perturbation on O3 and CH4 (via OH) is finally evaluated, considering both short-and long-term O3 responses. Ozone RF is calculated using the monthly averaged output of the three CTMs in two independent radiative transfer codes. According to the models, column ozone and CH4 lifetime changes due to coupled NOx/aerosol emissions are, on average, +0.56 Dobson Units (DU) and −1.

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“…6, middle column), hence supporting the latter mechanism. Pitari et al (2015) estimated the direct aerosol effect from aviation using the REACT4C inventory for 2006 (Søvde et al, 2014). They found a RF of −3.4 mW m −2 (for sulfate) and 0.86 mW m −2 (for BC).…”

Section: Aviation Impacts On Earth's Radiation Budgetmentioning

confidence: 99%

The global impact of the transport sectors on atmospheric aerosol in 2030 – Part 2: Aviation

2016

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Abstract. We use the EMAC (ECHAM/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry) global climate-chemistry model coupled to the aerosol module MADE (Modal Aerosol Dynamics model for Europe, adapted for global applications) to simulate the impact of aviation emissions on global atmospheric aerosol and climate in 2030. Emissions of short-lived gas and aerosol species follow the four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) designed in support of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We compare our findings with the results of a previous study with the same model configuration focusing on year 2000 emissions. We also characterize the aviation results in the context of the other transport sectors presented in a companion paper. In spite of a relevant increase in aviation traffic volume and resulting emissions of aerosol (black carbon) and aerosol precursor species (nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide), the aviation effect on particle mass concentration in 2030 remains quite negligible (on the order of a few ng m −3 ), about 1 order of magnitude less than the increase in concentration due to other emission sources. Due to the relatively small size of the aviation-induced aerosol, however, the increase in particle number concentration is significant in all scenarios (about 1000 cm −3 ), mostly affecting the northern mid-latitudes at typical flight altitudes (7-12 km). This largely contributes to the overall change in particle number concentration between 2000 and 2030, which also results in significant climate effects due to aerosol-cloud interactions. Aviation is the only transport sector for which a larger impact on the Earth's radiation budget is simulated in the future: the aviation-induced radiative forcing in 2030 is more than doubled with respect to the year 2000 value of −15 mW m −2 in all scenarios, with a maximum value of −63 mW m −2 simulated for RCP2.6.

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Aircraft emission mitigation by changing route altitude: A multi-model estimate of aircraft NOx emission impact on O3 photochemistry

Cited by 58 publications

References 78 publications

Air traffic simulation in chemistry-climate model EMAC 2.41: AirTraf 1.0

Air traffic simulation in chemistry-climate model EMAC 2.41: AirTraf 1.0

Impact of Coupled NOx/Aerosol Aircraft Emissions on Ozone Photochemistry and Radiative Forcing

The global impact of the transport sectors on atmospheric aerosol in 2030 – Part 2: Aviation

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