Mitigating the climate forcing of aircraft contrails by small-scale diversions and technology adoption
File(s)Final Manuscript (Clean).pdf (1.56 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Teoh, Roger
Schumann, Ulrich
Majumdar, Arnab
Stettler, Marc EJ
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The climate forcing of contrails and induced-cirrus cloudiness is thought to be comparable to the cumulative impacts of aviation CO2 emissions. This paper estimates the impact of aviation contrails on climate forcing for flight track data in Japanese airspace and propagates uncertainties arising from meteorology and aircraft black carbon (BC) particle number emissions. Uncertainties in the contrail age, coverage, optical properties, radiative forcing, and energy forcing (EF) from individual flights can be 2 orders of magnitude larger than the fleet-average values. Only 2.2% [2.0, 2.5%] of flights contribute to 80% of the contrail EF in this region. A small-scale strategy of selectively diverting 1.7% of the fleet could reduce the contrail EF by up to 59.3% [52.4, 65.6%], with only a 0.014% [0.010, 0.017%] increase in total fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. A low-risk strategy of diverting flights only if there is no fuel penalty, thereby avoiding additional long-lived CO2 emissions, would reduce contrail EF by 20.0% [17.4, 23.0%]. In the longer term, widespread use of new engine combustor technology, which reduces BC particle emissions, could achieve a 68.8% [45.2, 82.1%] reduction in the contrail EF. A combination of both interventions could reduce the contrail EF by 91.8% [88.6, 95.8%].
Date Issued
2020-03-03
Date Acceptance
2020-01-15
Citation
Environmental Science and Technology (Washington), 2020, 54 (5), pp.2941-2950
ISSN
0013-936X
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Start Page
2941
End Page
2950
Journal / Book Title
Environmental Science and Technology (Washington)
Volume
54
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2020 American Chemical Society. This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Environmental Science and Technology, after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b05608
Sponsor
Lloyd's Register Foundation
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000518235100040&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
No reference provided
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Engineering, Environmental
Environmental Sciences
Engineering
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
PERFORMANCE-MODEL
EMISSIONS
CIRRUS
PARAMETERIZATION
SENSITIVITY
IMPACTS
CYCLE
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-02-12