Aircraft routing with minimal climate impact: the REACT4C climate cost function modelling approach (V1.0)

Grewe, Volker; Frömming, Christine; Matthes, Sigrun; Brinkop, Sabine; Ponater, Michael; Dietmüller, Simone; Jöckel, Patrick; Garny, Hella; Tsati, Eleni; Dahlmann, Katrin; Søvde, O. A.; Fuglestvedt, Jan S.; Berntsen, Terje; Shine, Keith P.; Irvine, Emma A.; Champougny, T.; Hullah, Peter

doi:10.5194/gmd-7-175-2014

Cited by 71 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…The investigation and especially the optimization of mitigation options, such as finding an aircraft trajectory with lower climate impact or an aircraft design with a lower climate impact, requires a further step, the generation of specific climate impact data. They describe the climate change per unit emission from aviation and we call them climate change functions (CCFs, Section 2.2.3, [26]). These CCFs are then used in air traffic simulations to estimate the climate impact from aviation and to optimize individual aspects of the air transportation system with respect to climate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating the Climate Impact from Aviation: Achievements and Results of the DLR WeCare Project

et al. 2017

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Abstract:The WeCare project (Utilizing Weather information for Climate efficient and eco efficient future aviation), an internal project of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt, DLR), aimed at finding solutions for reducing the climate impact of aviation based on an improved understanding of the atmospheric impact from aviation by making use of measurements and modeling approaches. WeCare made some important contributions to advance the scientific understanding in the area of atmospheric and air transportation research. We characterize contrail properties, show that the aircraft type significantly influences these properties, and how contrail-cirrus interacts with natural cirrus. Aviation NO x emissions lead to ozone formation and we show that the strength of the ozone enhancement varies, depending on where within a weather pattern NO x is emitted. These results, in combination with results on the effects of aerosol emissions on low cloud properties, give a revised view on the total radiative forcing of aviation. The assessment of a fleet of strut-braced wing aircraft with an open rotor is investigated and reveals the potential to significantly reduce the climate impact. Intermediate stop operations have the potential to significantly reduce fuel consumption. However, we find that, if only optimized for fuel use, they will have an increased climate impact, since non-CO 2 effects compensate the reduced warming from CO 2 savings. Avoiding climate sensitive regions has a large potential in reducing climate impact at relatively low costs. Taking advantage of a full 3D optimization has a much better eco-efficiency than lateral re-routings, only. The implementation of such operational measures requires many more considerations. Non-CO 2 aviation effects are not considered in international agreements. We showed that climate-optimal routing could be achieved, if market-based measures were in place, which include these non-CO 2 effects. An alternative measure to foster climate-optimal routing is the closing of air spaces, which are very climate-sensitive. Although less effective than an unconstrained optimization with respect to climate, it still has a significant potential to reduce the climate impact of aviation. By combining atmospheric and air transportation research, we assess climate mitigation measures, aiming at providing information to aviation stakeholders and policy-makers to make aviation more climate compatible.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating the Climate Impact from Aviation: Achievements and Results of the DLR WeCare Project

et al. 2017

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“…1, light green) calculates a flight trajectory corresponding to a routing option. AirTraf will provide seven routing options: great circle (minimum flight distance), flight time (time-optimal), NO x , H 2 O, fuel (which might differ from H 2 O, if alternative fuel options can be used), contrail and CCFs (Frömming et al, 2013;Grewe et al, 2014b). In AirTraf (version 1.0), the great circle and the flight time routing options can currently be used.…”

Section: Calculation Procedures Of the Airtraf Submodelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…NO x , released in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, has a different lifetime ranging from a few days to several weeks, depending on atmospheric transport and chemical background conditions. In some regions, which experience a downward motion, e.g., ahead of a high-pressure system, NO x has short lifetimes and is converted to HNO 3 and then rapidly washed out (Matthes et al, 2012;Grewe et al, 2014b). The most localized and short-lived effect is contrail formation, with typical lifetimes from minutes to hours.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The development described in this paper is a prerequisite for the investigation of climate-optimized routings. The research road map for our study is as follows (Grewe et al, 2014b): the first step was to investigate the influence of specific weather situations on the climate impact of aircraft emissions (Matthes et al, 2012;Grewe et al, 2014b). This results in climate cost functions (CCFs, Frömming et al, 2013;Grewe et al, 2014a, b) that identify climate sensitive regions with respect to O 3 , CH 4 , H 2 O and contrails.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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“…CiC is expected to warm globally, but may cool regionally during daytime over dark surfaces, such as oceans. This opens further potential for daytime and weather-dependent aviation climate mitigation [6,26,27]. This paper investigates the potential for optimized aircraft design and air-traffic operations to minimize the climate impact of aviation on a climatological basis, regardless of the actual weather situation.…”

Section: Climate Impact From Aviationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate-Compatible Air Transport System—Climate Impact Mitigation Potential for Actual and Future Aircraft

et al. 2016

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Aviation guarantees mobility, but its emissions also contribute considerably to climate change. Therefore, climate impact mitigation strategies have to be developed based on comprehensive assessments of the different impacting factors. We quantify the climate impact mitigation potential and related costs resulting from changes in aircraft operations and design using a multi-disciplinary model workflow. We first analyze the climate impact mitigation potential and cash operating cost changes of altered cruise altitudes and speeds for all flights globally operated by the Airbus A330-200 fleet in the year 2006. We find that this globally can lead to a 42% reduction in temperature response at a 10% cash operating cost increase. Based on this analysis, new design criteria are derived for future aircraft that are optimized for cruise conditions with reduced climate impact. The newly-optimized aircraft is re-assessed with the developed model workflow. We obtain additional climate mitigation potential with small to moderate cash operating cost changes due to the aircraft design changes of, e.g., a 32% and 54% temperature response reduction for a 0% and 10% cash operating cost increase. Hence, replacing the entire A330-200 fleet by this redesigned aircraft (Ma cr = 0.72 and initial cruise altitude (ICA) = 8000 m) could reduce the climate impact by 32% without an increase of cash operating cost.

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Aircraft routing with minimal climate impact: the REACT4C climate cost function modelling approach (V1.0)

Cited by 71 publications

References 52 publications

Mitigating the Climate Impact from Aviation: Achievements and Results of the DLR WeCare Project

Mitigating the Climate Impact from Aviation: Achievements and Results of the DLR WeCare Project

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

Climate-Compatible Air Transport System—Climate Impact Mitigation Potential for Actual and Future Aircraft

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