Influence of vortex dynamics and atmospheric turbulence on the early evolution of a contrail

Paugam, Ronan; Paoli, Roberto; Cariolle, D.

doi:10.5194/acp-10-3933-2010

Cited by 44 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 61 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…3) of the contrail plume at all times. Besides for young contrails with low ice mass and low particle concentrations, this assumption is supported for contrails after the vortex formation even for large ambient supersaturation by large eddy simulations (Lewellen and Lewellen, 2001;Unterstrasser and Gierens, 2010a;Paugam et al, 2010) and measurements (Heymsfield et al, 1998). The temperature increase in the plume from combustion heat and later by sublimation heat is small after a few seconds of contrail age, see Appendix A6.…”

Section: Initial Contrail Ice Crystal Mass Concentrationmentioning

confidence: 71%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A contrail cirrus prediction model

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract.A new model to simulate and predict the properties of a large ensemble of contrails as a function of given air traffic and meteorology is described. The model is designed for approximate prediction of contrail cirrus cover and analysis of contrail climate impact, e.g. within aviation system optimization processes. The model simulates the full contrail life-cycle. Contrail segments form between waypoints of individual aircraft tracks in sufficiently cold and humid air masses. The initial contrail properties depend on the aircraft. The advection and evolution of the contrails is followed with a Lagrangian Gaussian plume model. Mixing and bulk cloud processes are treated quasi analytically or with an effective numerical scheme. Contrails disappear when the bulk ice content is sublimating or precipitating. The model has been implemented in a "Contrail Cirrus Prediction Tool" (CoCiP). This paper describes the model assumptions, the equations for individual contrails, and the analysis-method for contrailcirrus cover derived from the optical depth of the ensemble of contrails and background cirrus. The model has been applied for a case study and compared to the results of other models and in-situ contrail measurements. The simple model reproduces a considerable part of observed contrail properties. Mid-aged contrails provide the largest contributions to the product of optical depth and contrail width, important for climate impact.

show abstract

Section: Initial Contrail Ice Crystal Mass Concentrationmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…Paugam et al, 2010). However, the initial exhaust jet, wake vortex and contrail (with primary and secondary parts) often deviate considerably from this shape (Sussmann and Gierens, 1999;Gerz et al, 1998;Holzäpfel et al, 2010;Lewellen and Lewellen, 2001).…”

Section: The Gaussian Concentration Profilementioning

confidence: 99%

A contrail cirrus prediction model

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Contrarily, Lewellen and Lewellen (2001b) incorporated simplified NO x and HO x chemistry directly within the LES framework. Moreover, 3-D LES contrail studies examine the interplay of wake vortices and microphysics (Lewellen and Lewellen, 2001a;Huebsch and Lewellen, 2006;Paugam et al, 2010;Naiman et al, 2011;Unterstrasser et al, 2012). Sussmann (1999) analysed lidar observations of contrails to study the vertical dispersion of an aircraft wake.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dimension of aircraft exhaust plumes at cruise conditions: effect of wake vortices

et al. 2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The dispersion of aircraft emissions during the vortex phase is studied using a 3-D LES model with Lagrangian particle tracking. The simulations start with a fully rolled-up vortex pair of a type B747/A340 airplane and the tracer centred around the vortex cores. The tracer dilution and plume extent is studied for a variety of ambient and aircraft parameters until aircraft-induced effects have ceased. For typical upper tropospheric conditions, the impact of stratification is more dominant compared to turbulence intensity or vertical wind shear. Moreover, the sensitivity to the initial tracer distribution was found to be weak. Along the transverse direction, the tracer concentrations can be well approximated by a Gaussian distribution, along the vertical a superposition of three Gaussian distributions is adequate. For the studied parameter range, the vertical plume expansion ranges from 400 m to 550 m and cross-sectional area from 4.0 × 10 4 m 2 to 6 × 10 4 m 2 after six minutes. For validation, selected simulations were compared to an alternative LES model and to in-situ NO-measurements.

show abstract

“…One major drawback of the 3-D-approach are the high computational requirements, e.g., Paugam et al (2010) presents only one simulation run. Contrarily 2-Dmodels are considerably faster and can be used to explore a large number of atmospheric parameters .…”

Section: Numerical Studies Of the Contrail's Vortex Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most of the latest studies rely on 3-D-models (Lewellen and Lewellen, 2001;Huebsch and Lewellen, 2006;Paugam et al, 2010) with advanced dynamics, resolving in detail the features of vortex decay (vortex descent, Crow-instability, shortwave instability). One major drawback of the 3-D-approach are the high computational requirements, e.g., Paugam et al (2010) presents only one simulation run.…”

Section: Numerical Studies Of the Contrail's Vortex Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

Study of contrail microphysics in the vortex phase with a Lagrangian particle tracking model

Unterstraßer

Sölch

2010

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract.Crystal sublimation/loss is a dominant feature of the contrail evolution during the vortex phase and has a substantial impact on the later contrail-to-cirrus transition. Previous studies showed that the fraction of crystals surviving the vortex phase depends primarily on relative humidity, temperature and the aircraft type. An existing model for contrail vortex phase simulations (with a 2-moment bulk microphysics scheme) was upgraded with a newly developed state-of-the-art microphysics module (LCM) which uses Lagrangian particle tracking. This allows for explicit processoriented modelling of the ice crystal size distribution in contrast to the bulk approach. We show that it is of great importance to employ an advanced microphysics scheme to determine the crystal loss during the vortex phase. The LCMmodel shows even larger sensitivities to the above mentioned key parameters than previously estimated with the bulk model. The impact of the initial crystal number is studied and for the first time also the initial width of the crystal size distribution. Both are shown to be relevant. This corroborates the need for a realistic representation of microphysical processes and knowledge of the ice phase characteristics.

show abstract

Influence of vortex dynamics and atmospheric turbulence on the early evolution of a contrail

Cited by 44 publications

References 61 publications

A contrail cirrus prediction model

A contrail cirrus prediction model

Dimension of aircraft exhaust plumes at cruise conditions: effect of wake vortices

Study of contrail microphysics in the vortex phase with a Lagrangian particle tracking model

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About