Assessing the climate impact of the AHEAD multi-fuel blended wing body

Grewe, Volker; Bock, Lisa; Burkhardt, Ulrike; Dahlmann, Katrin; Gierens, Klaus; Hüttenhofer, L.; Unterstraßer, Simon; Rao, Arvind Gangoli; Bhat, Abhishek; Yin, Feijia; Reichel, Thoralf G.; Paschereit, Christian Oliver; Levy, Y.

doi:10.1127/metz/2016/0758

Cited by 30 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…We approximate the effect of reduced soot number emissions by a fixed decrease in the initial ice crystal number ('low soot number emissions' scenario). Since different measures for decreasing soot emissions, such as a decrease in the aromatic content of fuel, mixing regular Jet-A fuel with biofuel, 14 using multi-fuel approaches 25 or moving to lean combustion, 26 result in the reduction of soot number emissions by differing amounts, we reduce initial ice crystal concentration by 50, 80 and 90% and calculate the reduction in radiative forcing.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5 A 50:50 mix of a HEFA biofuel and regular Jet A fuel was found to decrease soot number emissions from airplanes by 50-70%. 14 Decreasing the fuel aromatics content, using biofuel together with liquid natural gas or liquid hydrogen, 25 or switching to lean combustion 26 is expected to lead to even larger reductions. Reducing engine soot number emissions by up to one order of magnitude from current levels (~1*10 15 per kg fuel) 27 leads to approximately the same reduction in the number of nucleated ice crystals as long as atmospheric temperatures are at least~2 K below the threshold temperature for contrail formation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mitigating the contrail cirrus climate impact by reducing aircraft soot number emissions

2018

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Contrail cirrus are a major component of the climate forcing due to air traffic. For a given contrail cirrus cover, ice water content and ice crystal shape, their impact on radiation is dependent on the number and size of ice crystals. Here we use a global climate model to study the impact of a reduction in initially formed ice crystal numbers, as may be caused by reduced soot number emissions. We find that for reduced initial ice crystal numbers the ice water content is decreased and ice crystal sizes increased, leading to a reduction in contrail cirrus optical depth and doubling the fraction of contrail cirrus that cannot be detected by satellite remote sensing. Contrail cirrus lifetimes and coverage are strongly reduced leading to significant reductions in contrail cirrus radiative forcing. The global climate impact of contrail cirrus is nonlinearly dependent on the reduction in initial ice crystal numbers. A reduction in the initial ice crystal number of 80% leads to a decrease in contrail cirrus radiative forcing by 50%, whereas a twofold reduction leads to a decrease in radiative forcing by approximately 20%. Only a few contrail cirrus outbreaks explain a large percentage of the climate impact. The contrail cirrus climate impact can be effectively mitigated by reducing initial ice crystal concentrations in such outbreak situations. Our results are important for assessments dealing with mitigating the climate impact of aviation and discussions about the use of alternative fuels or lean combustion in aviation.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating the contrail cirrus climate impact by reducing aircraft soot number emissions

2018

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“…(FV) or multi-fuel blended wing body (MF-BWB). Both have similar aerodynamic characteristics and were developed by TU Delft [29][30][31][32] and (3) NASA's N3-X (N3) blended wing body 33,34 . We find that the fuel consumption of a 2035 aircraft might be reduced between 18% and 22% compared to new 2015 aircraft and between 34% and 44% in 2050.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the climate impact of aviation emission scenarios towards the Paris agreement including COVID-19 effects

et al. 2021

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Aviation is an important contributor to the global economy, satisfying society’s mobility needs. It contributes to climate change through CO2 and non-CO2 effects, including contrail-cirrus and ozone formation. There is currently significant interest in policies, regulations and research aiming to reduce aviation’s climate impact. Here we model the effect of these measures on global warming and perform a bottom-up analysis of potential technical improvements, challenging the assumptions of the targets for the sector with a number of scenarios up to 2100. We show that although the emissions targets for aviation are in line with the overall goals of the Paris Agreement, there is a high likelihood that the climate impact of aviation will not meet these goals. Our assessment includes feasible technological advancements and the availability of sustainable aviation fuels. This conclusion is robust for several COVID-19 recovery scenarios, including changes in travel behaviour.

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“…An advantage of the climate-optimized routing is that the routing is immediately applicable to the current fleet of aircraft without large costs of renewing the fleet. Technological measures (e.g., efficient engines, blended wing-body configurations, laminar flow controls, and sustainable fuels; [9,10]) also have an important role in reducing the climate impact of aviation; however, the implementation of those measures is a long-term effort. Both climate-optimized routing and the technological measures are required to effectively reduce the climate impact of aviation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of Aircraft Routing Strategies for North Atlantic Flights by Using AirTraf 2.0

et al. 2021

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Climate-optimized routing is an operational measure to effectively reduce the climate impact of aviation with a slight increase in aircraft operating costs. This study examined variations in the flight characteristics among five aircraft routing strategies and discusses several characteristics of those routing strategies concerning typical weather conditions over the North Atlantic. The daily variability in the North Atlantic weather patterns was analyzed by using the European Center Hamburg general circulation model (ECHAM) and the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) model in the specified dynamics mode from December 2008 to August 2018. All days of the ten complete winters and summers in the simulations were classified into five weather types for winter and into three types for summer. The obtained frequency for each of the weather types was in good agreement with the literature data; and then representative days for each weather type were selected. Moreover, a total of 103 North Atlantic flights of an Airbus A330 aircraft were simulated with five aircraft routing strategies for each representative day by using the EMAC model with the air traffic simulation submodel AirTraf. For every weather type, climate-optimized routing shows the lowest climate impact, at which a trade-off exists between the operating costs and the climate impact. Cost-optimized routing lies between the time- and fuel-optimized routings and achieves the lowest operating costs by taking the best compromise between flight time and fuel use. The aircraft routing for contrail avoidance shows the second lowest climate impact; however, this routing causes extra operating costs. Our methodology could be extended to statistical analysis based on long-term simulations to clarify the relationship between the aircraft routing characteristics and weather conditions.

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Assessing the climate impact of the AHEAD multi-fuel blended wing body

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

Mitigating the contrail cirrus climate impact by reducing aircraft soot number emissions

Mitigating the contrail cirrus climate impact by reducing aircraft soot number emissions

Evaluating the climate impact of aviation emission scenarios towards the Paris agreement including COVID-19 effects

Analysis of Aircraft Routing Strategies for North Atlantic Flights by Using AirTraf 2.0

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