Contrail life cycle and properties from 1 year of MSG/SEVIRI rapid-scan images

Vázquez-Navarro, Margarita; Mannstein, Hermann; Kox, Stephan

doi:10.5194/acp-15-8739-2015

Cited by 63 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…4; the pdf is generated from a 3 % subsample of 1-year simulation data and, hence, misses the few contrails with the upper limit age of 36 h). The lifetimes are within the range of results derived with ACTA from Meteosat contrail observations by Vázquez-Navarro et al (2015).…”

Section: Contrail Propertiessupporting

confidence: 56%

“…As in previous CoCiP studies, the magnitude of the computed SW / LW ratio is quite large (0.56). This SW / LW ratio varies between 0.2 and 0.8 in the literature (Haywood et al, 2009;Myhre et al, 2009;Yi et al, 2012;Minnis et al, 2013;Schumann and Graf, 2013;Vázquez-Navarro et al, 2015). The ratio may become even larger for small ice particles and higher contrail temperatures (Meerkötter et al, 1999;Zhang et al, 1999).…”

Section: Some Global Contrail Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Ages up to about 1 day have been observed Haywood et al, 2009;Vázquez-Navarro et al, 2015).) In the original code version, this required frequent readings of the input files.…”

Section: The Contrail Simulation Model Cocipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The contrail width pdf (not shown) is a maximum at zero width and decreases exponentially, with a 5 km median and an 8.1 km mean width. The width range of ACTA contrails is more limited (7.8 ± 2 km) (Vázquez-Navarro et al, 2015). (Ewald et al, 2013) and outgoing longwave radiation (Vázquez-Navarro et al, 2013) data were derived from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) infrared satellite observations.…”

Section: Comparison Of Contrail Properties With Observations From Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

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Dehydration effects from contrails in a coupled contrail–climate model

et al. 2015

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Abstract. The uptake of water by contrails in icesupersaturated air and the release of water after ice particle advection and sedimentation dehydrates the atmosphere at flight levels and redistributes humidity mainly to lower levels. The dehydration is investigated by coupling a plumescale contrail model with a global aerosol-climate model. The contrail model simulates all the individual contrails forming from global air traffic for meteorological conditions as defined by the climate model. The computed contrail cirrus properties compare reasonably with theoretical concepts and observations. The mass of water in aged contrails may exceed 10 6 times the mass of water emitted from aircraft. Many of the ice particles sediment and release water in the troposphere, on average 700 m below the mean flight levels. Simulations with and without coupling are compared. The drying at contrail levels causes thinner and longer-lived contrails with about 15 % reduced contrail radiative forcing (RF). The reduced RF from contrails is on the order of 0.06 W m −2 , slightly larger than estimated earlier because of higher soot emissions. For normal traffic, the RF from dehydration is small compared to interannual variability. A case with emissions increased by 100 times is used to overcome statistical uncertainty. The contrails impact the entire hydrological cycle in the atmosphere by reducing the total water column and the cover by high-and low-level clouds. For normal traffic, the dehydration changes contrail RF by positive shortwave and negative longwave contributions on the order of 0.04 W m −2 , with a small negative net RF. The total net RF from contrails and dehydration remains within the range of previous estimates.

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Section: Contrail Propertiessupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Some Global Contrail Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Ages up to about 1 day have been observed Haywood et al, 2009;Vázquez-Navarro et al, 2015).) In the original code version, this required frequent readings of the input files.…”

Section: The Contrail Simulation Model Cocipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comparison Of Contrail Properties With Observations From Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

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Dehydration effects from contrails in a coupled contrail–climate model

et al. 2015

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“…The instrumentation of HALO consisted of a suite of novel cloud instruments [28], a water vapor/cloud lidar [30] and an advanced aerosol, trace gas and radiation instrumentation. The aircraft observations were extended with observations from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) on Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellite [31,32] and by numerical simulations with the Contrail and Cirrus Prediction Model (CoCiP) [15,33]. The campaign location in central Europe (Munich, Germany, Figure 2) was chosen, because it guarantees fast access to regions with high air traffic density.…”

Section: Aircraft Experiments Ml-cirrusmentioning

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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Reassessing properties and radiative forcing of contrail cirrus using a climate model

2016

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Contrail cirrus is the largest known component contributing to the radiative forcing associated with aviation. Despite major advances simulating contrail cirrus, their microphysical and optical properties and the associated radiative forcing remain largely uncertain. We use a contrail cirrus parameterization in a global climate model which was extended to include a microphysical two‐moment scheme. This allows a more realistic representation of microphysical processes, such as deposition and sedimentation, and therefore of the microphysical and optical properties of contrail cirrus. The simulated contrail microphysical and optical properties agree well with in situ and satellite observations. As compared to estimates using an older version of the contrail cirrus scheme, the optical depth of contrail cirrus is significantly higher, particularly in regions with high air traffic density, due to high ice crystal number concentrations on the main flight routes. Nevertheless, the estimated radiative forcing for the year 2002 supports our earlier results. The global radiative forcing of contrail cirrus for the year 2006 is estimated to be 56mW/m2. A large uncertainty of the radiative forcing estimate appears to be connected with the, on average, very small ice crystal radii simulated in the main air traffic areas, which make the application of a radiative transfer parameterization based on geometric optics questionable.

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Contrail life cycle and properties from 1 year of MSG/SEVIRI rapid-scan images

Cited by 63 publications

References 40 publications

Dehydration effects from contrails in a coupled contrail–climate model

Dehydration effects from contrails in a coupled contrail–climate model

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

Reassessing properties and radiative forcing of contrail cirrus using a climate model

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