Abstract. The global commercial aircraft fleet in 2006 flew 31.26 million flights, burned 188.20 million metric tons of fuel, and covered 38.68 billion kilometers. This activity emitted substantial amounts of fossil-fuel combustion products within the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere that affect atmospheric composition and climate. The emissions products, such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur compounds, and particulate matter, are not emitted uniformly over the Earth, so understanding the temporal and spatial distributions is important for modeling aviation's climate impacts.
Current and future climate impacts of aviation emissions are quantified using a combination of atmospheric models, surface and satellite observations, and laboratory experiments. IMPACT OF AVIATION ON CLIMATEFAA's Aviation Climate Change Research Initiative (ACCRI) Phase II by Guy P. brasseur, Mohan GuPta, bruce e. anderson, sathya balasubraManian, steven barrett, david duda, GreGG FleMinG, Piers M. Forster, Jan FuGlestvedt, andrew GettelMan, ranGasayi n. halthore, s. daniel Jacob, Mark Z. Jacobson, areZoo khodayari, kuo-nan liou, Marianne t. lund, richard c. Miake-lye, Patrick Minnis, seth olsen, Joyce e. Penner, ronald Prinn, ulrich schuMann, henry b. selkirk, andrei sokolov, nadine unGer, PhiliP wolFe, hsi-wu wonG, donald w. wuebbles, binGqi yi, PinG yanG, and chenG Zhou D uring the course of flight, aircraft burn fuel and emit gases and particles into the atmosphere, primarily at cruise altitudes within the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere (UTLS).These emissions include carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), water vapor (H 2 O), hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NO x or NO + NO 2 ), sulfur oxides (SO x ), and nonvolatile black carbon (BC or AFFILIATIONS: brasseur-Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, and National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado; GuPta, halthore, and Jacob-Federal Aviation Administration, Washington, d.c.; anderson and Minnis-nasa Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia; balasubraManian and FleMinG-Volpe Center, Department of Transportation, Cambridge, Massachusetts; barrett, Prinn, sokolov, and wolFe-Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts; dudassai/nasa Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia; ForsterUniversity of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom; FuGlestvedt and lundcicero, Norway; GettelMan-National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado; Jacobson-Stanford University, Palo Alto, California; khodayari*, olsen, and wuebbles-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois; liou-University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; Miake-lye and wonG*-Aerodyne Research Inc., Billerica, Massachusetts; Penner and Zhou-University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; The impact of these emissions on UTLS has been examined for several decades (Schumann 1994;Brasseur et al. 1998;Penner et al. 1999;Lee et al. 2009 1 Gaseous emissions of SO x and NO x evolve and partially transform into volatile nitrate and sulfate aerosols and those of gaseous HC emissions into semivolatile organic particles, which also contribute to climate change. Particles like sulfates generally have a cooling effect (negative RF) unless they coat soot particles, which exert warming effects. Note that BC particles are normally considered to be the main component of soot particles.Persistent linear contrails produced in the wake of aircraft contribute to net climate warming. Contrailinduced cirrus clouds (AIC) are also expected to affect the solar and terrestrial infrared radiative budget of the atmosphere, but t...
Abstract. The global commercial aircraft fleet in 2006 flew more than 31 million flights, burned nearly 190 million metric tons of fuel, and covered 38 billion kilometers. This activity emitted substantial amounts of fossil-fuel combustion products within the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere that affect atmospheric composition and climate. The emissions products, such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur compounds, and particulate matter, are not emitted uniformly over the Earth, so understanding the temporal and spatial distributions is an important component for modeling aviation climate impacts. Here, we analyze global commercial aircraft emission data for 2004 and 2006. Data, provided by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, were computed using the Federal Aviation Administration's Aviation Environmental Design Tool. For both years, analysis of flight data shows 93 percent of fuel was burned in the Northern Hemisphere, 69 percent between 30 N and 60 N latitudes; 77 (75) percent was burned above 7 km in 2004 (2006). This activity led to 177 (162) Tg of carbon from CO2 globally in 2004 (2006), with half being emitted over three dominant regions: United States, Europe, East Asia. The difference between 2004 and 2006 is a result of fewer flights in 2006 and the methodology used to compute fuel burn and emissions from those flights. We also show that despite receiving only a few percent of global emissions, the Arctic receives a concentration of emissions of the same order of magnitude as the global average. The following is a summary of this data which illustrates the global and regional aviation emissions footprints for 2004 and 2006, and provides temporal and spatial distribution statistics of several emissions constituents. Finally, we show that 87 (85) percent of all flights in 2004 (2006) are short-haul missions, yet those flights are responsible for only 38 (39) percent of total emissions.
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