A growing body of research has highlighted the major contribution of aviation non-CO2 emissions and effects to anthropogenic climate change. Regulation of these emissions, for example in the EU Emissions Trading System, requires the use of a climate metric. However, choosing a suitable climate metric is challenging due to the high uncertainties of aviation non-CO2 climate impacts, their variability in atmospheric lifetimes and their dependence on emission location and altitude. Here we use AirClim to explore alternatives to the conventional Global Warming Potential (GWP) by analysing the neutrality, temporal stability, compatibility and simplicity of existing climate metrics and perform a trade-off. We find that using the temperature-based Average Temperature Response (ATR) or using an Efficacy-weighted GWP (EGWP) would enable a more accurate assessment of existing as well as future aircraft powered by novel aviation fuels ... Read more

A growing body of research has highlighted the major contribution of aviation non-CO2 emissions to anthropogenic climate change. Regulation of these emissions, for example in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), requires the use of a climate metric. However, choosing a suitable climate metric is challenging due to the high uncertainties of aviation non-CO2 climate impacts, their variability in atmospheric lifetimes and their dependence on emission location and altitude. In this study, we explore the neutrality, temporal stability, compatibility and transparency of existing, physical climate metrics and find the Average Temperature Response (ATR) to be most suitable for aviation policy and aircraft design. We show that the similarities of the total CO2-eq emissions calculated by the ATR and the Global Warming Potential (GWP) for current aircraft would enable a timely introduction of the ATR in aviation policy, allowing for a more accurate assessment of novel aviation fuels and aircraft designs. ... Read more

The aircraft’s environmental performance on fleet level is so far completely decoupled from the design process. The climate impact from aviation arising from non-CO2 effects are largely independent from CO2 emissions, but rather depend on the atmospheric state. Previously complex climate-chemistry models were used to evaluate the non-CO2 emissions impact on climate. This is far too computationally demanding for a multidisciplinary design optimisation (MDO) process, requiring a multitude of climate impact evaluations. The question then is, how to efficiently design the next generation climate optimal aircraft? In this paper, a new concept for designing aircraft with minimum climate impact using Climate Functions for Aircraft Design (CFAD) is presented. The content of this paper provides an overview of the development of these innovative CFAD and demonstrates the ability to be integrated in an existing MDO framework. The mitigation potential by optimising aircraft design using CFAD is analysed with respect to different cruise conditions and by minimizing the overall climate impact. To validate the CFAD, a higher fidelity assessment is carried out. Finally, the key performance indicators, i.e. fuel consumption, flight time and operating cost, of the optimised aircraft design are compared to that of the reference aircraft. ... Read more

Aviation ensures mobility for both passengers and goods. It is important as a transport sector for connections on and between continents. Nevertheless, aviation also contributes to anthropogenic climate change. The effects are usually divided in CO2 and non-CO2 effects and therefore not only CO2 emissions but also other emissions (e.g., NOx , water vapour or soot) and contrails are covered. To reduce the effects of aviation’s climate impact, several mitigation options are applied. One approach are climate change functions, which will be addressed here. The concept of climate change functions was used in previous projects, e.g. REACT4C, WeCare, ATM4E. The goal of these functions was to optimize the aircraft routes regarding the calculated climate impact. Climate change functions measure the climate impact per unit emission for a specific day, which considers the current meteorological conditions. Climate change functions were previously used to optimize the aircraft routings. The concept should now be applied for the optimization of the aircraft design as well since the promising concept is currently missing for the application of aircraft design optimization. The climate functions for aircraft design will connect the aircraft design with the climate impact of various emission in order to be able to optimize the aircraft design. For the calculation of the functions, it is necessary to define a specific application. This application results from a combination of aircraft design parameters. Aircraft design parameters can be for example flight altitude, climb rate, speed or range. Based on a resulting emission inventory, the temperature response can be calculated with the model “AirClim”. This model calculates with the input, first, the radiative forcing and based on that the temperature change. The final development step is the verification of the climate functions. ... Read more

Aviation is a highly necessary transport sector in our modern society. It guarantees mobility on a short- and long-range spectrum and is still a growing sector. However, aviation also contributes signi_cantly to the anthropogenic climate change via CO2 and non-CO2 e_ects. One possibility to reduce the climate impact of aviation would be to optimize the aircraft at the design level. Another possibility is to optimize the operations, e.g. to avoid climate sensitive regions in the ight route. To derive modelling capabilities, we review the climate impact of aviation with a focus on climate optimization of aircraft operations and design. The overall climate impact of aviation based on CO2 and non-CO2 e_ects is analyzed under consideration of contrails and di_erent emissions like CO2, NOx, and H2O. The connection to the related temperature change is shown via the climate sensitivity for each species. An overview over the most common climate metrics, including radiative forcing, global warming potential, global temperature potential, and the average temperature response is given in order to _nd the most suitable climate metric for aircraft design purposes. During previous studies within various projects, e.g. WeCare, REACT4C, and ATM4E, climate optimization strategies for aircraft operations were investigated. The aircraft routes regarding the ight path or altitude can be adjusted in regard to climate considerations, also in dependence on the current weather situation. In these projects, climate change functions and algorithmic climate change functions were developed which could potentially facilitate the climate optimized routings. The aircraft design for climate optimization di_ers from the approach to optimize the design for reduced cost or reduced fuel burn. For the climate impact, ying slow and low is bene_cial which was shown in the project CATS, but this is not reected in the current aircraft design. Therefore, previous studies propose redesigned aircraft. The relation between climate, aircraft operations and aircraft design is used to point out the requirements for modelling resulting from that. The focus is on the connection between climate and operations on one side, and on the connection between climate and design considerations on the other side. Currently, the model capacity for aircraft design does not support the climate optimized design. Therefore, deriving climate functions for aircraft design is highly important which will be one of the main goals in the Clean Sky 2 project GLOWOPT (Global-Warming-Optimized Aircraft Design). ... Read more

Given the comparably high impact of aircraft emissions, especially their non-CO2 effects, on climate in the order of 5%, aviation stakeholders are required to act to reduce the warming effects of air traffic. Besides new operational procedures, like e.g. climate-optimized routing, this demands the development of completely new global-warming optimized aircraft by aircraft manufacturers. The European Clean Sky 2 project "Global-Warming Optimized Aircraft Design" (GLOWOPT) aims at providing aircraft designers an innovative tool to perform aircraft design studies for minimum climate impact, which we call Climate Functions for Aircraft Design (CFAD). The CFAD will substantially change the way aircraft are designed, while maintaining compatibility to existing Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) methods. The functions need to integrate a lot of information on the typical aircraft usage, including the routes the aircraft will be operated on. This is because, besides the amount of emissions, the impact of aviation non-CO2 effects, such as NOx, H2O as well as contrails, on climate is highly dependent on location (i.e. latitude, longitude) and altitude. So, the representative operating profile of the aircraft needs to be considered in a characteristic route and fleet model. This work will present the interdisciplinary GLOWOPT approach, which comprises expertise on aircraft design, operations, atmospheric physics and climate. Conceptual thoughts on how the complexity of the operating profile in combination with the geographically variable climate impact of aircraft emissions will be reduced such that it can be used in an aircraft design process are given. ... Read more