Large present-day and future climate forcing due to non-CO2 emissions from global transport
Johannes Hendricks (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
Mattia Righi (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
Sabine Brinkop (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
Katrin Dahlmann (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
Mariano Mertens (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), TU Delft - Operations & Environment)
Christof G. Beer (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
Volker Grewe (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), TU Delft - Operations & Environment)
J. Christopher Kaiser (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
Michael Ponater (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
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Abstract
Emissions from land-based transport, aviation, and shipping contribute significantly to climate change. Besides CO2, these emissions include short-lived compounds that affect air quality but are also climatically relevant. We use a global chemistry-climate model to show that the climate effects of these non-CO2 emissions are substantial across all transport sectors both now and in the future. In sum, the non-CO2 impacts result in a cooling, which offsets the positive climate forcing from transport-induced CO2 by around 80% at present and between 25 and 60% in different scenarios for 2050. The trade-off that air pollutants mitigate global warming is strongly reduced in a future scenario with low anthropogenic emissions, where even small remaining amounts of non-CO2 compounds cause significant cooling as they are released in a very clean atmosphere. Our findings emphasize the need to take non-CO2 effects into account when assessing climate protection strategies for the transport sectors.
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