Global impacts of aircraft emissions on air quality and nitrogen deposition

Global passenger air traffic has doubled in the 13 years prior to 2019, and is expected to double again over the next 20 years or so. Growing demand for aviation is met by a corresponding increase in jet fuel being burned by aircraft, releasing multiple pollutants into the atmosphere. Besides disturbing the Earth’s radiative balance, these...

An efficient ensemble Kalman Filter implementation via shrinkage covariance matrix estimation: exploiting prior knowledge

In this paper, we propose an efficient and practical implementation of the ensemble Kalman filter via shrinkage covariance matrix estimation. Our filter implementation combines information brought by an ensemble of model realizations, and that based on our prior knowledge about the dynamical system of interest. We perform the combination of...

COVID-19: Research Directions for Non-Clinical Aerosol-Generating Facilities in the Built Environment

Physical contact and respiratory droplet transmission have been widely regarded as the main routes of COVID-19 infection. However, mounting evidence has unveiled the risk of aerosol transmission of the virus. Whereas caution has been taken to avoid this risk in association with clinical facilities, facilities such as spa pools and Jacuzzis,...

Implications of future atmospheric composition in decision-making for sustainable aviation

Aviation emissions lead to degraded air quality and adverse human health impacts, making air quality one of the leading environmental externalities associated with aviation. Aviation emissions have been growing steadily over the past decades, and, despite the current hindrance in air traffic due to the COVID- 19 pandemic, they are forecasted to...

Regional sensitivities of air quality and human health impacts to aviation emissions

Emissions from civil aviation degrade air quality, and have been estimated to lead to ~16 000 premature deaths annually. Previous studies have indicated that aviation emissions in different regions have varying corresponding air quality and human health impacts. Given the global nature of aviation activity and its forecasted regionally...