The effects of rerouting aircraft around the arctic circle on arctic and global climate

Jacobson, Mark Z.; Wilkerson, Jordan; Balasubramanian, S.; Cooper, Wayne W.; Mohleji, Nina

doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0462-0

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 21 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We note here that for small horizontal diversions it is possible that the chemical forcings between the two routes would be comparable; however since the impact depends on where the NO x emissions are advected, small diversions could potentially result in large differences in impact (Grewe et al 2014). The impact of black carbon and other aerosol emissions may also be important and could be incorporated in more detailed estimates (Jacobson et al 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

A simple framework for assessing the trade-off between the climate impact of aviation carbon dioxide emissions and contrails for a single flight

Irvine

Hoskins

Shine

2014

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Persistent contrails are an important climate impact of aviation which could potentially be reduced by re-routing aircraft to avoid contrailing; however this generally increases both the flight length and its corresponding CO 2 emissions. Here, we provide a simple framework to assess the trade-off between the climate impact of CO 2 emissions and contrails for a single flight, in terms of the absolute global warming potential and absolute global temperature potential metrics for time horizons of 20, 50 and 100 years. We use the framework to illustrate the maximum extra distance (with no altitude changes) that can be added to a flight and still reduce its overall climate impact. Small aircraft can fly up to four times further to avoid contrailing than large aircraft. The results have a strong dependence on the applied metric and time horizon. Applying a conservative estimate of the uncertainty in the contrail radiative forcing and climate efficacy leads to a factor of 20 difference in the maximum extra distance that could be flown to avoid a contrail.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

A simple framework for assessing the trade-off between the climate impact of aviation carbon dioxide emissions and contrails for a single flight

Irvine

Hoskins

Shine

2014

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Results based on simplified climate response models indicate that even small differences between various mitigation scenarios resulting from flight altitude variations might be reliably assessed 105 . One study suggests that circumnavigating the Arctic circle by re-routing cross-polar flights reduces soot pollution there 106 .…”

Section: Mitigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formation and radiative forcing of contrail cirrus

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aircraft-produced contrail cirrus clouds contribute to anthropogenic climate change. Observational data sets and modelling approaches have become available that clarify formation pathways close to the source aircraft and lead to estimates of the global distribution of their microphysical and optical properties. While contrail cirrus enhance the impact of natural clouds on climate, uncertainties remain regarding their properties and lifecycle. Progress in representing aircraft emissions, contrail cirrus and natural cirrus in global climate models together with tighter constraints on the sensitivity of the climate system will help judge efficiencies of and trade-offs between mitigation options.

show abstract

“…The model is run with year 2010 meteorology and a T42 resolution (approximately 2.8 • × 2.8 • ) with 60 vertical layers from the surface to 0.1 hPa. Aviation emissions for 2006 are from the AEDT inventory (Wilkerson et al, 2010), while other anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions are from the HTAPv2 (Janssens-Maenhout et al, 2015) and Global Fire Emissions Database version 3 (GFED3; van der Werf et al, 2010) inventories. Guidance on how to access and use the AEDT emissions in atmospheric models is provided by Barrett et al (2010).…”

Section: Atmospheric Concentrations and Radiative Forcingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emission metrics for quantifying regional climate impacts of aviation

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. This study examines the impacts of emissions from aviation in six source regions on global and regional temperatures. We consider the NOx-induced impacts on ozone and methane, aerosols and contrail-cirrus formation and calculate the global and regional emission metrics global warming potential (GWP), global temperature change potential (GTP) and absolute regional temperature change potential (ARTP). The GWPs and GTPs vary by a factor of 2–4 between source regions. We find the highest aviation aerosol metric values for South Asian emissions, while contrail-cirrus metrics are higher for Europe and North America, where contrail formation is prevalent, and South America plus Africa, where the optical depth is large once contrails form. The ARTP illustrate important differences in the latitudinal patterns of radiative forcing (RF) and temperature response: the temperature response in a given latitude band can be considerably stronger than suggested by the RF in that band, also emphasizing the importance of large-scale circulation impacts. To place our metrics in context, we quantify temperature change in four broad latitude bands following 1 year of emissions from present-day aviation, including CO2. Aviation over North America and Europe causes the largest net warming impact in all latitude bands, reflecting the higher air traffic activity in these regions. Contrail cirrus gives the largest warming contribution in the short term, but remain important at about 15 % of the CO2 impact in several regions even after 100 years. Our results also illustrate both the short- and long-term impacts of CO2: while CO2 becomes dominant on longer timescales, it also gives a notable warming contribution already 20 years after the emission. Our emission metrics can be further used to estimate regional temperature change under alternative aviation emission scenarios. A first evaluation of the ARTP in the context of aviation suggests that further work to account for vertical sensitivities in the relationship between RF and temperature response would be valuable for further use of the concept.

show abstract

The effects of rerouting aircraft around the arctic circle on arctic and global climate

Cited by 11 publications

References 21 publications

A simple framework for assessing the trade-off between the climate impact of aviation carbon dioxide emissions and contrails for a single flight

A simple framework for assessing the trade-off between the climate impact of aviation carbon dioxide emissions and contrails for a single flight

Formation and radiative forcing of contrail cirrus

Emission metrics for quantifying regional climate impacts of aviation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About