Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions
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2007
10.5194/acpd-7-12185-2007
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/12185/2007/
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/12185/2007/acpd-7-12185-2007.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/12185/2007/acpd-7-12185-2007.pdf
12185
12229
2007-08-17
A strategy for climate evaluation of aircraft technology: an efficient climate impact assessment tool – AirClim
V. Grewe
volker.grewe@dlr.de
A. Stenke
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, 82230 Wessling, Germany
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 CO<sub>2</sub>, H<sub>2</sub>O, CH<sub>4</sub> and O<sub>3</sub> (latter two resulting from NO<sub>x</sub>-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 CO<sub>2</sub> for the year 2100.
However the impact on temperature
is of comparable size even when taking into account temperature decreases from CH<sub>4</sub>.
That implies that all future measures for climate stabilisation should concentrate on both CO<sub>2</sub> and NO<sub>x</sub> emissions.
A direct comparison of super- with subsonic aircraft (250 passengers, 5400 nm) reveals a
5 times higher climate impact of supersonics.
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