Predicting the climate impact of aviation for en-route emissions: The algorithmic climate change function submodel ACCF 1.0 of EMAC 2.53

The Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) provides an interface to couple submodels to a base model via a modular flexible data management facility. This paper presents the newly developed MESSy submodel, ACCF version 1.0 (ACCF 1.0), based on algorithmic Climate Change Functions version 1.0 (aCCFs 1.0), which describes the climate impact of...

Towards a new surrogate model for predicting short-term NOx-O3 effects from aviation using Gaussian processes

While efforts have been made to curb CO2 emissions from aviation, the more uncertain non-CO2 effects that contribute about two-thirds to the warming in terms of radiative forcing (RF), still require attention. The most important non-CO2 effects include persistent line-shaped contrails, contrail-induced cirrus clouds and nitrogen oxide (NOx)...

Transport Patterns of Global Aviation NOx and their Short-term O3 Radiative Forcing: A Machine Learning Approach

Aviation produces a net climate warming contribution that comprises multiple forcing terms of mixed sign. Aircraft NOx emissions are associated with both warming and cooling terms, with the short-term increase in O3 induced by NOx emissions being the dominant warming effect. The uncertainty associated with the magnitude of this climate forcer...

The analysis of the climate mitigation potential in terms of O3-Radiative Forcing from aviation NOx using O3 algorithmic climate change functions

Aviation contributes to 3.5% of anthropogenic climate change in terms of Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF) and 5% in terms of temperature change. Aviation climate impact is expected to increase rapidly due to the growth of air transport sector in most regions of the world and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to only have a...

A Lagrangian study of globally emitted aviation NOx and associated short-term O3 radiative forcing effects

The resilient growth of air travel demands a comprehensive understanding of the climate effects from aviation emissions. The current level of knowledge of the environmental repercussions of CO2 emissions is considerably higher than that of non-CO2 emissions, which includes nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), other aerosols like black...

Case Study for Testing the Validity of NOx-Ozone Algorithmic Climate Change Functions for Optimising Flight Trajectories

One possibility to reduce the climate impact of aviation is the avoidance of climate-sensitive regions, which is synonymous with climate-optimised flight planning. Those regions can be identified by algorithmic Climate Change Functions (aCCFs) for nitrogen oxides (NOx), water vapour (H2O) as well as contrail cirrus, which provide a measure of...

Influence of weather situation on non-CO2 aviation climate effects: The REACT4C climate change functions

Emissions of aviation include CO2, H2O, NOx, sulfur oxides, and soot. Many studies have investigated the annual mean climate impact of aviation emissions. While CO2 has a long atmospheric residence time and is almost uniformly distributed in the atmosphere, non-CO2 gases and particles and their products have short atmospheric residence times...

Analysis of aircraft routing strategies for north atlantic flights by using airtraf 2.0

Climate-optimized routing is an operational measure to effectively reduce the climate impact of aviation with a slight increase in aircraft operating costs. This study examined variations in the flight characteristics among five aircraft routing strategies and discusses several characteristics of those routing strategies concerning typical...

Comparison of various aircraft routing strategies using the air traffic simulation model airtraf 2.0

A climate-optimized routing is expected as an operational measure to reduce the climate impact of aviation, whereas this routing causes extra aircraft operating costs. This study performs some air traffic simulations of nine aircraft routing strategies which include the climate-optimized routing, and examines characteristics of those routings. A...

Assessing the climate impact of formation flights

Emissions of aviation include CO2, H2O, NOx and particles. While CO2 has a long atmospheric residence time and is uniformly distributed in the atmosphere, non-CO2 gases, particles and their products have short atmospheric residence times and are heterogeneously distributed. Their climate effects depend on chemical and meteorological background...

Newly developed aircraft routing options for air traffic simulation in the chemistry–climate model EMAC 2.53: AirTraf 2.0

Aviation contributes to climate change, and the climate impact of aviation is expected to increase further. Adaptations of aircraft routings in order to reduce the climate impact are an important climate change mitigation measure. The air traffic simulator AirTraf, as a submodel of the European Center HAMburg general circulation model (ECHAM)...

The impact of weather patterns and related transport processes on aviation's contribution to ozone and methane concentrations from NO_xemissions

Aviation-attributed climate impact depends on a combination of composition changes in trace gases due to emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and non-CO2 species. Nitrogen oxides (NOx D NO C NO2) emissions induce an increase in ozone (O3) and a depletion of methane (CH4), leading to a climate warming and a cooling, respectively. In contrast to...

Impact on flight trajectory characteristics when avoiding the formation of persistent contrails for transatlantic flights

This paper studies the impacts on flight trajectories, such as lateral and vertical changes, when avoiding the formation of persistent contrails for transatlantic flights. A sophisticated Earth-System Model (EMAC) coupled with a flight routing submodel (AirTraf) and a contrail submodel (CONTRAIL) is used to optimize flight trajectories...

Cost-Benefit Assessment of Climate and Weather Optimized Trajectories for Different North Atlantic Weather Patterns

Besides CO2, the climate impact of commercial aviation is strongly influenced by non-CO2 effects, which are highly sensitive to meteorological conditions and their spatial variations. To assess the cost-benefit potential (climate impact mitigation vs. cost increase) of climate and weather optimized flight trajectories in the North Atlantic...

A concept for multi-criteria environmental assessment of aircraft trajectories

Comprehensive assessment of the environmental aspects of flight movements is of increasing interest to the aviation sector as a potential input for developing sustainable aviation strategies that consider climate impact, air quality and noise issues simultaneously. However, comprehensive assessments of all three environmental aspects do not yet...

Mitigating the Climate Impact from Aviation: Achievements and Results of the DLR WeCare Project

The WeCare project (Utilizing Weather information for Climate efficient and eco efficient future aviation), an internal project of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR), aimed at finding solutions for reducing the climate impact of aviation based on an improved understanding of the atmospheric impact from...

Feasibility of climate-optimized air traffic routing for trans-Atlantic flights

Current air traffic routing is motivated by minimizing economic costs, such as fuel use. In addition to the climate impact of CO2 emissions from this fuel use, aviation contributes to climate change through non-CO2 impacts, such as changes in atmospheric ozone and methane concentrations and formation of contrail-cirrus. These non-CO2 impacts...

Contribution of emissions to concentrations: The TAGGING 1.0 submodel based on the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy 2.52)

Questions such as “what is the contribution of road traffic emissions to climate change?” or “what is the impact of shipping emissions on local air quality?” require a quantification of the contribution of specific emissions sectors to the concentration of radiatively active species and air-quality-related species, respectively. Here, we present...