scholarly journals Contrail cirrus radiative forcing for future air traffic

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Bock ◽  
Ulrike Burkhardt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Traffic Volume ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Strong Increase ◽  
Emission Reductions ◽  
Propulsion Efficiency ◽  
Soot Emissions

Abstract. The climate impact of air traffic is to a large degree caused by changes in cirrus cloudiness resulting from the formation of contrails. Contrail cirrus radiative forcing is expected to increase significantly with time due to the large projected increases in air traffic. We use ECHAM5-CCMod, an atmospheric climate model with an online contrail cirrus parameterization including a microphysical two-moment scheme, to investigate the climate impact of contrail cirrus for the year 2050. We take into account the predicted increase in air traffic volume and changes in propulsion efficiency and emissions, in particular soot emissions, and the modification of the contrail cirrus climate impact due to anthropogenic climate change. Contrail cirrus radiative forcing increases by a factor of 3 from 2006 to 2050, resulting from the increase in air traffic volume and a slight shift of air traffic towards higher altitudes. Large increases in contrail cirrus radiative forcing are expected over all of the main air traffic areas but relative increases are largest over South-East Asia/India and Eastern China/Japan. The projected upward shift of air traffic attenuates contrail cirrus radiative forcing increases in the mid-latitudes but reinforces it in the tropical areas. Climate change has an insignificant impact on global contrail cirrus radiative forcing. Of the emission reductions it is the soot number emission reductions by 50 % that lead to a significant decrease in contrail cirrus optical depth and coverage, leading to a decrease in radiative forcing by approximately 15 %. The strong increase in contrail cirrus radiative forcing due to the projected increase in air traffic volume cannot be compensated for by the decrease in initial ice crystal numbers due to reduced soot emissions and by improvements in propulsion efficiency.

scholarly journals Contrail cirrus radiative forcing for future air traffic

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 8163-8174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Bock ◽  
Ulrike Burkhardt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Traffic Volume ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Strong Increase ◽  
Emission Reductions ◽  
Propulsion Efficiency ◽  
Soot Emissions

Abstract. The climate impact of air traffic is to a large degree caused by changes in cirrus cloudiness resulting from the formation of contrails. Contrail cirrus radiative forcing is expected to increase significantly over time due to the large projected increases in air traffic. We use ECHAM5-CCMod, an atmospheric climate model with an online contrail cirrus parameterization including a microphysical two-moment scheme, to investigate the climate impact of contrail cirrus for the year 2050. We take into account the predicted increase in air traffic volume, changes in propulsion efficiency and emissions, in particular soot emissions, and the modification of the contrail cirrus climate impact due to anthropogenic climate change. Global contrail cirrus radiative forcing increases by a factor of 3 from 2006 to 2050, reaching 160 or even 180 mW m−2, which is the result of the increase in air traffic volume and a slight shift in air traffic towards higher altitudes. Large increases in contrail cirrus radiative forcing are expected over all of the main air traffic areas, but relative increases are largest over main air traffic areas over eastern Asia. The projected upward shift in air traffic attenuates contrail cirrus radiative forcing increases in the midlatitudes but reinforces it in the tropical areas. Climate change has an insignificant impact on global contrail cirrus radiative forcing, while regional changes are significant. Of the emission reductions it is the soot number emission reductions by 50 % that lead to a significant decrease in contrail cirrus optical depth and coverage, leading to a decrease in radiative forcing by approximately 15 %. The strong increase in contrail cirrus radiative forcing due to the projected increase in air traffic volume cannot be compensated for by the decrease in initial ice crystal numbers due to reduced soot emissions and improvements in propulsion efficiency.

scholarly journals Incorrect Asian aerosols affecting the attribution and projection of regional climate change in CMIP6 models

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhili Wang ◽  
Lei Lin ◽  
Yangyang Xu ◽  
Huizheng Che ◽  
Xiaoye Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Regional Climate Change ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽  
Wide Range

AbstractAnthropogenic aerosol (AA) forcing has been shown as a critical driver of climate change over Asia since the mid-20th century. Here we show that almost all Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models fail to capture the observed dipole pattern of aerosol optical depth (AOD) trends over Asia during 2006–2014, last decade of CMIP6 historical simulation, due to an opposite trend over eastern China compared with observations. The incorrect AOD trend over China is attributed to problematic AA emissions adopted by CMIP6. There are obvious differences in simulated regional aerosol radiative forcing and temperature responses over Asia when using two different emissions inventories (one adopted by CMIP6; the other from Peking university, a more trustworthy inventory) to driving a global aerosol-climate model separately. We further show that some widely adopted CMIP6 pathways (after 2015) also significantly underestimate the more recent decline in AA emissions over China. These flaws may bring about errors to the CMIP6-based regional climate attribution over Asia for the last two decades and projection for the next few decades, previously anticipated to inform a wide range of impact analysis.

scholarly journals Perfluorocyclobutane (PFC-318, <i>c</i>-C<sub>4</sub>F<sub>8</sub>) in the global atmosphere

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (15) ◽  
pp. 10335-10359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Mühle ◽  
Cathy M. Trudinger ◽  
Luke M. Western ◽  
Matthew Rigby ◽  
Martin K. Vollmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Emission Reduction ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Semiconductor Industry ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Reporting Requirements ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Global Emissions

Abstract. We reconstruct atmospheric abundances of the potent greenhouse gas c-C4F8 (perfluorocyclobutane, perfluorocarbon PFC-318) from measurements of in situ, archived, firn, and aircraft air samples with precisions of ∼1 %–2 % reported on the SIO-14 gravimetric calibration scale. Combined with inverse methods, we found near-zero atmospheric abundances from the early 1900s to the early 1960s, after which they rose sharply, reaching 1.66 ppt (parts per trillion dry-air mole fraction) in 2017. Global c-C4F8 emissions rose from near zero in the 1960s to 1.2±0.1 (1σ) Gg yr−1 in the late 1970s to late 1980s, then declined to 0.77±0.03 Gg yr−1 in the mid-1990s to early 2000s, followed by a rise since the early 2000s to 2.20±0.05 Gg yr−1 in 2017. These emissions are significantly larger than inventory-based emission estimates. Estimated emissions from eastern Asia rose from 0.36 Gg yr−1 in 2010 to 0.73 Gg yr−1 in 2016 and 2017, 31 % of global emissions, mostly from eastern China. We estimate emissions of 0.14 Gg yr−1 from northern and central India in 2016 and find evidence for significant emissions from Russia. In contrast, recent emissions from northwestern Europe and Australia are estimated to be small (≤1 % each). We suggest that emissions from China, India, and Russia are likely related to production of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, “Teflon”) and other fluoropolymers and fluorochemicals that are based on the pyrolysis of hydrochlorofluorocarbon HCFC-22 (CHClF2) in which c-C4F8 is a known by-product. The semiconductor sector, where c-C4F8 is used, is estimated to be a small source, at least in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Europe. Without an obvious correlation with population density, incineration of waste-containing fluoropolymers is probably a minor source, and we find no evidence of emissions from electrolytic production of aluminum in Australia. While many possible emissive uses of c-C4F8 are known and though we cannot categorically exclude unknown sources, the start of significant emissions may well be related to the advent of commercial PTFE production in 1947. Process controls or abatement to reduce the c-C4F8 by-product were probably not in place in the early decades, explaining the increase in emissions in the 1960s and 1970s. With the advent of by-product reporting requirements to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the 1990s, concern about climate change and product stewardship, abatement, and perhaps the collection of c-C4F8 by-product for use in the semiconductor industry where it can be easily abated, it is conceivable that emissions in developed countries were stabilized and then reduced, explaining the observed emission reduction in the 1980s and 1990s. Concurrently, production of PTFE in China began to increase rapidly. Without emission reduction requirements, it is plausible that global emissions today are dominated by China and other developing countries. We predict that c-C4F8 emissions will continue to rise and that c-C4F8 will become the second most important emitted PFC in terms of CO2-equivalent emissions within a year or two. The 2017 radiative forcing of c-C4F8 (0.52 mW m−2) is small but emissions of c-C4F8 and other PFCs, due to their very long atmospheric lifetimes, essentially permanently alter Earth's radiative budget and should be reduced. Significant emissions inferred outside of the investigated regions clearly show that observational capabilities and reporting requirements need to be improved to understand global and country-scale emissions of PFCs and other synthetic greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances.

Incorrect Asian aerosols affecting the attribution and projection of regional climate change in CMIP6 models 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Lin ◽  
Zhili Wang ◽  
Yangyang Xu ◽  
Huizheng Che ◽  
Xiaoye Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Regional Climate Change ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽  
Wide Range

&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Anthropogenic aerosol (AA) forcing has been shown as a critical driver of climate change over Asia since the mid-20th century. Here we show that almost all Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models fail to capture the observed dipole pattern of aerosol optical depth (AOD) trends over Asia during 2006&amp;#8211;2014, last decade of CMIP6 historical simulation, due to an opposite trend over eastern China compared with observations. The incorrect AOD trend over China is attributed to problematic AA emissions adopted by CMIP6. There are obvious differences in simulated regional aerosol radiative forcing and temperature responses over Asia when using two different emissions inventories (one adopted by CMIP6; the other from Peking university, a more trustworthy inventory) to driving a global aerosol-climate model separately. We further show that some widely adopted CMIP6 pathways (after 2015) also significantly underestimate the more recent decline in AA emissions over China. These flaws may bring about errors to the CMIP6-based regional climate attribution over Asia for the last two decades and projection for the next few decades, previously anticipated to inform a wide range of impact analysis.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Differences in Sulfate Aerosol Radiative Forcing between the Daytime and Nighttime over East Asia Using the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) Model

Atmosphere ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyue Zhang ◽  
Siyu Chen ◽  
Nanxuan Jiang ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Xiaorui Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Sulfate Aerosol ◽  
Weather Research And Forecasting ◽  
Forecasting Model ◽  
Sulfate Aerosols ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

The effect of aerosols is an important indicator of climate change. Sulfate aerosols, as the major scattering aerosols, which have attracted more and more attention in recent years. The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) were utilized to investigate the spatial distribution of sulfate aerosols and their radiative forcing characteristics over East Asia in 2010. Results showed that sulfate aerosols were mainly distributed over eastern China (24–43° N, 101–126° E), especially in the Sichuan Basin. The concentration of sulfate aerosols decreased with increasing altitude over East Asia. It also exhibited obvious seasonal variations, where the largest range of sulfate aerosol concentrations was found in summer, with a maximum of 2.4 μg kg−1 over eastern China. Although sulfate aerosol concentrations varied slightly during day and night, there was still a significantly difference in the sulfate aerosol radiative forcing. Specifically, the magnitude of the direct radiative forcing induced by sulfate aerosols at the surface was approximately −3.02 W m−2 in the daytime, while that was +0.24 W m−2 in the nighttime. This asymmetric change that was caused by the radiative forcing of sulfate aerosols between day and night would have significant impacts on climate change at the regional scale.

scholarly journals A strategy for climate evaluation of aircraft technology: an efficient climate impact assessment tool – AirClim

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 12185-12229 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Grewe ◽  
A. Stenke
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Nox Emissions ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Temperature Changes ◽  
Concentration Changes ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Climate change is a challenge to society and to cope with requires assessment tools which are suitable to evaluate new technology options with respect to their impact on climate. Here we present AirClim, a model which comprises a linearisation of the processes occurring from the emission to an estimate in near surface temperature change, which is presumed to be a reasonable indicator for climate change. The model is designed to be applicable to aircraft technology, i.e.~the climate agents CO2, H2O, CH4 and O3 (latter two resulting from NOx-emissions) and contrails are taken into account. It employs a number of precalculated atmospheric data and combines them with aircraft emission data to obtain the temporal evolution of atmospheric concentration changes, radiative forcing and temperature changes. The linearisation is based on precalculated data derived from 25 steady-state simulations of the state-of-the-art climate-chemistry model E39/C, which include sustained normalised emissions at various atmospheric regions. The results show that strongest climate impacts from ozone changes occur for emissions in the tropical upper troposphere (60 mW/m²; 80 mK for 1 TgN emitted), whereas from methane in the middle tropical troposphere (–2.7% change in methane lifetime; –30 mK per TgN). The estimate of the temperature changes caused by the individual climate agents takes into account a perturbation lifetime, related to the region of emission. A comparison of this approach with results from the TRADEOFF and SCENIC projects shows reasonable agreement with respect to concentration changes, radiative forcing, and temperature changes. The total impact of a supersonic fleet on radiative forcing (mainly water vapour) is reproduced within 5%. For subsonic air traffic (sustained emissions after 2050) results show that although ozone-radiative forcing is much less important than that from CO2 for the year 2100. However the impact on temperature is of comparable size even when taking into account temperature decreases from CH4. That implies that all future measures for climate stabilisation should concentrate on both CO2 and NOx emissions. A direct comparison of super- with subsonic aircraft (250 passengers, 5400 nm) reveals a 5 times higher climate impact of supersonics.

scholarly journals Air traffic and contrail changes during COVID-19 over Europe: A model study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Schumann ◽  
Ian Poll ◽  
Roger Teoh ◽  
Rainer Koelle ◽  
Enrico Spinielli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Vapor ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Traffic Density ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Reference Case ◽  
Model Study ◽  
Soot Emissions ◽  
Background Air

Abstract. The strong reduction of air traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic provides a test case for the relation between air traffic density, contrails, and their radiative forcing of climate change. Air traffic and contrail cirrus changes are quantified for a European domain for March to August 2020 and compared to the same period in 2019. Traffic data show a 72 % reduction in flight distance compared with 2019. This paper investigates the induced contrail changes in a model study. The contrail model results depend on various methodological details tested in parameter studies. In the reference case, the reduced traffic caused an even stronger reduction in contrail length, partly because the weather conditions in 2020 were less favourable for contrail formation than in 2019. Contrail coverage over Europe with an optical depth larger than 0.1 decreased from 4.6 % in 2019 to 1.4 % in 2020; total cirrus cover amount changed from 28 to 25 %. The reduced contrail coverage caused 70 % less longwave and 73 % less shortwave radiative forcing with the consequential reduction of 54 % in the net forcing. The methods include recently developed models for performance parameters and soot emissions. The overall propulsion efficiency of the aircraft is about 20 % smaller than estimated in earlier studies, resulting in 3 % fewer contrails. Considerable sensitivity to soot emissions is found highlighting fuel and engine importance. The contrail model includes a new approximate method to account for water vapor exchange between contrails and background air and for radiative forcing changes due to contrail-contrail overlap. The water vapor exchange reduces available ice supersaturation in the atmosphere, which is critical for contrail formation. Contrail-contrail overlap changes the computed radiative forcing considerably. Comparisons to satellite observations are to be described in a follow-on paper.

scholarly journals Simulated radiative forcing from contrails and contrail cirrus

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 12525-12536 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.-C. Chen ◽  
A. Gettelman
Keyword(s):  
Diurnal Cycle ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Hydrologic Cycle ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Regional Effect ◽  
Emissions Inventory ◽  
Aviation Emissions

Abstract. A comprehensive general circulation model including ice supersaturation is used to estimate the climate impact of aviation induced contrails. The model uses a realistic aviation emissions inventory for 2006 to initiate contrails, and allows them to evolve consistently with the model hydrologic cycle. The radiative forcing from linear contrails is very sensitive to the diurnal cycle. For linear contrails, including the diurnal cycle of air traffic reduces the estimated radiative forcing by 29%, and for contrail cirrus estimates, the radiative forcing is reduced by 25%. Estimated global radiative forcing from linear contrails is 0.0031 ± 0.0005 Wm−2. The linear contrail radiative forcing is found to exhibit a strong diurnal cycle. The contrail cirrus radiative forcing is less sensitive to the diurnal cycle of flights. The estimated global radiative forcing from contrail cirrus is 0.013 ± 0.01 Wm−2. Over regions with the highest air traffic, the regional effect can be as large as 1 Wm−2.

scholarly journals Climate Impact Mitigation Potential of European Air Traffic in a Weather Situation with Strong Contrail Formation

Aerospace ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Benjamin Lührs ◽  
Florian Linke ◽  
Sigrun Matthes ◽  
Volker Grewe ◽  
Feijia Yin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Trajectory Optimization ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Aviation Industry ◽  
Impact Mitigation ◽  
Impact Reduction ◽  
Fuel Burn ◽  
Weather Situation

Air traffic contributes to anthropogenic global warming by about 5% due to CO2 emissions and non-CO2 effects, which are primarily caused by the emission of NOx and water vapor as well as the formation of contrails. Since—in the long term—the aviation industry is expected to maintain its trend to grow, mitigation measures are required to counteract its negative effects upon the environment. One of the promising operational mitigation measures that has been a subject of the EU project ATM4E is climate-optimized flight planning by considering algorithmic climate change functions that allow for the quantification of aviation-induced climate impact based on the emission’s location and time. Here, we describe the methodology developed for the use of algorithmic climate change functions in trajectory optimization and present the results of its application to the planning of about 13,000 intra-European flights on one specific day with strong contrail formation over Europe. The optimization problem is formulated as bi-objective continuous optimal control problem with climate impact and fuel burn being the two objectives. Results on an individual flight basis indicate that there are three major classes of different routes that are characterized by different shapes of the corresponding Pareto fronts representing the relationship between climate impact reduction and fuel burn increase. On average, for the investigated weather situation and traffic scenario, a climate impact reduction in the order of 50% can be achieved by accepting 0.75% of additional fuel burn. Higher mitigation gains would only be available at much higher fuel penalties, e.g., a climate impact reduction of 76% associated with a fuel penalty of 12.8%. However, these solutions represent much less efficient climate impact mitigation options.

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