AS3.25 | Towards sustainable road traffic, shipping and aviation: from emissions to climate and air quality effects
EDI
Towards sustainable road traffic, shipping and aviation: from emissions to climate and air quality effects
Convener: Sigrun Matthes | Co-conveners: Baptiste TestaECSECS, Leonidas Ntziachristos, Mariano MertensECSECS, Yun LiECSECS, Sajedeh MarjaniECSECS, Patrick PeterECSECS
Orals
| Tue, 16 Apr, 14:00–15:45 (CEST), 16:15–18:00 (CEST)
 
Room F2
Posters on site
| Attendance Wed, 17 Apr, 16:15–18:00 (CEST) | Display Wed, 17 Apr, 14:00–18:00
 
Hall X5
Posters virtual
| Attendance Wed, 17 Apr, 14:00–15:45 (CEST) | Display Wed, 17 Apr, 08:30–18:00
 
vHall X5
Orals |
Tue, 14:00
Wed, 16:15
Wed, 14:00
The transport sector, which includes road traffic, shipping, and aviation, is a significant contributor to global warming and has a negative effect on air quality. The combustion of fossil fuels results in the emission of gases and particles that alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere. These gases can act as direct greenhouse gases, such as CO2, or undergo complex reactions, forming secondary species. The emitted particles interact with radiation and affect clouds. Emissions from aviation can also lead to the formation of contrails, which affect natural cloud formation processes. While some of these non-CO2 effects contribute to global warming and others to cooling, the overall warming contribution of transport emissions is predominant.

Due to the significant increase in demand, the contribution of aviation to climate change is expected to grow. Additionally, emissions from road traffic and shipping may also increase depending on changes in mobility and technological advancements. Therefore, it is crucial to develop and implement measures and methods to reduce the anthropogenic climate footprint, including the share of different transport modes. Possible methods to reduce the environmental impact of aviation include alternative fuels, such as electricity or hydrogen, and technological advancements, such as after-exhaust treatment systems.

However, the assessment of the effects of such measures and methods with numerical atmospheric models relies heavily on state-of-the-art emission inventories. It is crucial to provide information on the uncertainties in the emission data to ensure a dependable assessment of air quality and climate effects. This information also contributes to the uncertainties in the representation of physical, chemical, and dynamic processes in atmospheric models.

The objective of this session is to bring together the community involved in the development of transport emissions inventories with the community involved in the use of these inventories. On one hand, the aim is to establish a shared understanding of the different requirements and uncertainties related to emission inventories. On the other hand, particular attention will be given to the latest research on the non-CO2 effects of aviation. Contributions can range from measurement campaigns to modelling results and implementing strategies for integrating climate effect reduction in flight planning.

Session assets

Orals: Tue, 16 Apr | Room F2

Chairpersons: Sigrun Matthes, Yun Li, Sajedeh Marjani
14:00–14:05
14:05–14:25
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EGU24-22108
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solicited
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On-site presentation
Irene Dedoussi

Non-CO2 emissions contribute to climate effects from aviation in the same order of magnitude as carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, the non-CO2 effects, comprising e.g., ozone and methane induced from NOx emissions, together with contrails, or the indirect aerosol effects, are associated with much larger uncertainties. While CO2 and non-CO2 effects in general introduce a warming effect for climate change, some indirect effects might result in a relatively large cooling component. The EU Aeronautics project ACACIA (Advancing the SCience for Aviation and ClimAte) explored the climate impacts of non-CO2 effects which show a strong dependence on atmospheric conditions and synoptic situation. An overview on current scientific understanding, as well as open research questions will be provided.

Acknowledgements ACACIA (Advancing the scienCe for Aviation and ClImAte) receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 875036.

How to cite: Dedoussi, I.: Advancing understanding on aviation's non-CO2 climate effects, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-22108, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-22108, 2024.

14:25–14:35
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EGU24-18334
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On-site presentation
Borgar Aamaas, Marianne T. Lund, Jan S. Fuglestvedt, Anna Totterdill, David S. Lee, and Bethan Owen

We model the global temperature change due to global aviation based on the recently developed International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Long Term Aspirational Goal (LTAG) emissions scenarios. ICAO has produced four different “scenarios”, including a baseline scenario with frozen technology and three “integrated scenarios” with varying levels of in-sector CO2 reductions from technology and operational improvements and including different fuel mixes. Aviation activity leads to a mix of long-lived CO2 effects and several short-lived effects. Our analysis includes CO2, contrails/cirrus, NOx, water vapor, and black carbon. The non-CO2 emissions and activity are developed in this study to be consistent with each of the ICAO CO2 scenarios.

We combine these fuel and emission data with recent knowledge on radiative forcing, including uncertainties. By using the simple climate model CICERO-SCM, we model the change in global temperature until 2100 given the different scenarios. We will show how scenario range, uncertainty in RF, effect of background conditions, and uncertainties in other parameter choices impact the temperature calculations. For NOx, we include scenarios that account for the effect of background NOx emissions. We also compile CO2 emission aviation scenarios available in the literature from the past decade and compare these with ICAO’s.

Our results confirm the temperature impact of the aviation sector estimated by other studies, but also show large uncertainties. When accounting for the impact of aviation NOx being dependent on the background conditions, we find a large variation in global temperature change based on what SSP is used as background. While NOx emissions from aviation will likely grow according to the ICAO scenarios, global emissions of NOx are declining in the SSPs, making this issue important to study further. With a growing share of SAF and LH2 in the fuel mix, we also observe a large range in temperature impact accounting for the literature range on contrail formation for different types of fuels.

Our overarching study shows that better understanding is needed to more robustly estimate the climate impact of aviation, including estimating RF of non-CO2 and in going from aviation activity to RF from contrails for different types of fuels.

How to cite: Aamaas, B., Lund, M. T., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Totterdill, A., Lee, D. S., and Owen, B.: Future global temperature impact of global aviation in ICAO scenarios, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-18334, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18334, 2024.

14:35–14:45
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EGU24-2898
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On-site presentation
Roland Eichinger, Volker Grewe, Katrin Dahlmann, Malte Niklass, Alexander Lau, Janina Scheelhaase, Florian Wozny, Liam Megill, Martin Plohr, Sigrun Matthes, Dennis Piontek, Christiane Voigt, Florian Linke, Vincent de Haes, Marson Jesus, Eneko Rodriguez, Maarten Tielrooij, Robert Koster, and Luis Natera Orozco

To date, only CO2 is addressed in the EU aviation Emission Trading System (EU-ETS), which implies that the major part of aviation climate effects, the non-CO2 effects, is not included. An agreement on a revision of the CO2 EU-ETS by the EU trilogue from 2022 now includes monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of non-CO2 aviation climate effects starting in 2025. However, the detailed steps towards an inclusion of non-CO2 effects are controversially debated for i) the calculation of aviation CO2 equivalents (CO2e), regarding suitable models as well as the choice of a climate metric and its time horizon, ii) the complexity of the entire system including data requirements, availability and streams generating administrative burden for various parties and iii) the large uncertainties in non-CO2 climate effects and their associated risks. Here, we discuss, analyse and put forward these points aiming at an inclusion of aviation non-CO2 effects into a political framework, as results of a project with the German Environmental Agency and current activities at EU-commision level as part of a EU-tender.

In this presentation, we lay out a plan for an MRV system including tasks for monitoring and reporting by aircraft operators as well as verifying by competent autorities. Our work aims at supporting the process towards an EU-wide MRV system and its way to operationalisation. This includes analysis of suitable climate metrics and climate models for CO2e calculations of non-CO2 emissions by aviation. Moreover, the data needed to apply the models for CO2e computation of individual flights is defined. For this, a minimum set of data and a possible extended list of data for both a climatological and a weather-based approach is determined. The more complex solutions can be used to on the one hand increase accuracy of the results and on the other hand allow more incentives for aircraft operators to mitigate climate effects. However, increases in administrative burden have to be considered to maintain acceptance by all parties. Advice on default values for data gaps is provided too, which is needed in case of individually or generally missing data for example due to technical issues or confidentiality. Lastly, uncertainties in the context of non-CO2 aviation effects and their associated risks for the MRV are discussed. The governing overarching goal in this undertaking must always remain the contribution to reaching the Paris Agreement targets through climate change mitigation incentives for the aviation industry.

How to cite: Eichinger, R., Grewe, V., Dahlmann, K., Niklass, M., Lau, A., Scheelhaase, J., Wozny, F., Megill, L., Plohr, M., Matthes, S., Piontek, D., Voigt, C., Linke, F., de Haes, V., Jesus, M., Rodriguez, E., Tielrooij, M., Koster, R., and Orozco, L. N.: Bringing to life a monitoring, reporting and verification system for aviation non-CO2 climate effects, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-2898, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-2898, 2024.

14:45–14:55
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EGU24-12867
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Louis Robion, Vincent Meijer, Raymond Speth, Sebastian Eastham, and Steven Barrett

Contrails are estimated to be one of the largest contributors to the aviation sector’s climate impacts. A potential mitigation approach is avoiding flying in regions where contrails form and persist by rerouting aircraft above or below these regions.

Implementing such contrail avoidance strategies requires accurately forecasting the location of contrail forming regions. Although models exist, their prediction ability is limited by uncertainties in local weather conditions and contrail modeling. Understanding how these limitations affect our ability to predict contrail formation at a regional scale is necessary to improve forecasting of contrail avoidance regions.

To address this, we develop an observational inventory of the evolution of contrail forming regions over the United States. By developing a deep-learning algorithm and ensemble Kalman filter, we generate robust contrail detections on geostationary satellite imagery at a 5-minute frequency. Observed contrail forming regions are tracked over their lifespan allowing for the derivation of properties such as lifetime of the region, or rates of formation of contrails. These observed properties are compared to contrail model outputs using numerical weather prediction data, as well as correlated to patterns such as flight traffic density or spatial extent of the region. We also investigate the variability in conditions across the United States which support contrail formation.

Direct comparison of model outputs to large-scale high temporal resolution imagery of contrail forming regions will inform our understanding of contrail formation regions by providing observational evidence as to when and why current predictions can succeed.

How to cite: Robion, L., Meijer, V., Speth, R., Eastham, S., and Barrett, S.: Robust satellite-based tracking of contrail forming regions, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-12867, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-12867, 2024.

14:55–15:05
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EGU24-16254
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On-site presentation
Edward Gryspeerdt, Marc Stettler, Roger Teoh, Ulrike Burkhardt, Toni Delovski, and David Painemal

Clouds produced by aircraft (contrails) are responsible for over half of the positive radiative forcing from aviation, leading to the proposal of contrail avoidance as a method for mitigating the climate impact of aviation. This requires accurate prediction of the radiative properties of individual contrails, which themselves are highly dependent on the contrail microphysical properties, lifetime and macrophysical evolution along with the background atmospheric state.  In-situ observations have also shown an impact of the generating aircraft and its fuel type on the properties and evolution of contrails. However, these observations are typically made close to the aircraft, with fewer observational constraints for the properties of the longer-lived contrails that drive the majority of the radiative forcing.

Coupling satellite observations of contrails with flight data, we track contrails formed by individual aircraft over the North Atlantic. We find a strong link between aircraft type and contrail lifetime, with newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft forming longer-lived contrails. This relationship is not driven by the aircraft properties, but rather by operational differences in aircraft flight patterns, with the newer types flying higher in this region and so producing contrails with longer lifetimes. We present some encouraging initial evidence of reductions in aircraft soot emissions affecting contrail lifetime.

How to cite: Gryspeerdt, E., Stettler, M., Teoh, R., Burkhardt, U., Delovski, T., and Painemal, D.: Observing links between lifetimes of satellite detectable contrails and aircraft type, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-16254, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-16254, 2024.

15:05–15:15
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EGU24-1576
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Xinyue Wang, Kevin Wolf, Olivier Boucher, and Nicolas Bellouin

Estimation of the perturbation to the Earth’s energy budget by contrail-cirrus outbreaks is required for estimating the climate impact of aviation and verifying the climate benefits of proposed contrail avoidance strategies such as aircraft rerouting. Here we identified two large-scale and successive contrail-cirrus outbreaks in geostationary and polar-orbiting satellite infrared images of Western Europe lasting from 22 to 23 June 2020. These two outbreaks last 18 and at least 7 hours and have a mean optical depth of 0.3 and 0.6, respectively. Their cloud radiative effect is calculated using geostationary satellite cloud retrievals and radiative transfer calculations, is weak or negative during daytime and positive during nighttime. Surface albedo affects the sign of the cloud radiative effect, which switches from negative over ocean to positive over land in the first outbreak. The cumulative energy forcing of the outbreak is 7 PJ and –8.5 PJ, respectively, with uncertainties from individual cloud retrievals being about 3 PJ. This study suggests that automated quantification of contrail-cirrus radiative forcing for monitoring or avoidance verification should be possible based on geostationary satellite observations.

How to cite: Wang, X., Wolf, K., Boucher, O., and Bellouin, N.: Radiative effect of two contrail cirrus outbreaks over Western Europe estimated using geostationary satellite observations and radiative transfer calculations, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-1576, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-1576, 2024.

15:15–15:25
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EGU24-17420
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Weiyu Zhang, Alexandru Rap, Kwinten Van Weverberg, Kalli Furtado, Wuhu Feng, Cyril Morcrette, and Piers Forster

Aviation currently makes a 3.5% contribution to the anthropogenic effective radiative forcing of climate. The largest component of this forcing comes from contrail cirrus, estimated to be 2 times larger than the contribution from aviation CO2 emissions. However, there is still a large uncertainty (i.e. ~70%) in the contrail cirrus effective radiative forcing (ERF) estimates according to the latest aviation climate impact assessment.

Here we implement the existing contrail parameterisation developed for the Community Atmosphere Model version 6 (CAM6) in the atmospheric component of the UK Earth System Model (UKESM), i.e. the Unified Model (UM). By analysing and comparing the results from both models, we are able to isolate and investigate for the first time how key features of the host climate model is affecting our ability to accurately quantify the contrail climate impacts.

We show that differences in background humidity (particularly ice supersaturation) in the two climate models lead to substantial differences in the simulated contrail fractions, with UM values being 2-3 times larger than those from CAM6. We also find contrasting responses in overall global cloud cover due to air traffic, with contrails causing increases and decreases in total cloud fraction in the UM and in CAM6, respectively. The different complexity of the two models’ cloud schemes (i.e. single and double moment cloud scheme in UM and CAM6, respectively) results in substantial differences in the simulated contrail-driven changes in cloud ice water content. However, if we account for this difference in cloud scheme complexity by scaling the simulated UM contrail cirrus optical depth to match existing estimates, the contrail cirrus ERFs simulated by the two models are comparable.

To conclude, the large dependence of the simulated contrail cirrus climate impact on the host climate model highlights the need for improved evaluations of the key model microphysical and radiative processes.

How to cite: Zhang, W., Rap, A., Van Weverberg, K., Furtado, K., Feng, W., Morcrette, C., and Forster, P.: The role of the host climate model in quantifying the contrail cirrus climate impact, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-17420, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-17420, 2024.

15:25–15:35
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EGU24-11991
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ECS
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Highlight
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On-site presentation
Evan Gibney, Sebastian Eastham, Florian Allroggen, and Steven Barrett

Hydrogen is being investigated as a promising zero-carbon sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), offering the potential to eliminate direct CO2 emissions with low lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the combustion of hydrogen can remove all emissions of SOx, nvPM, CO, and unburned hydrocarbons. There are, however, climate and air quality costs to the use of hydrogen. Combustion of hydrogen is still expected to result in emissions of NOx, and the degree to which contrails will be increased or mitigated is unknown. In addition, there has been little research into the long-term consequences of direct emission of hydrogen.

Hydrogen emissions originate from leakage, venting, and purging that occur both within the supply chain and on the aircraft. Though not a direct greenhouse gas, hydrogen reacts in the atmosphere via mechanisms that increase the effects of other potent greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Specifically, increased emissions of hydrogen are projected to increase the lifetime of methane, the tropospheric burden of ozone, and the stratospheric burden of water vapor – all greenhouse gases. No study to date has assessed the additional climate impacts associated with direct emission when considering hydrogen as an aviation fuel. Furthermore, with the dominant loss mechanism of emitted hydrogen being based in soil, no study has evaluated the degree to which these indirect mechanisms might differ for hydrogen which is emitted at altitude. These considerations have the potential to change the perceived sustainability of hydrogen as an aviation fuel.

In this study, we quantify the climate and air quality impacts (excluding contrails) of a hypothetical future hydrogen aircraft fleet compared to equivalent kerosene and hydrocarbon-based SAF fleets. We use the GEOS-Chem global chemistry transport model, modified to represent hydrogen’s surface soil sink, to conduct a spatially discretized, multi-year impact assessment. Multiple scenarios are evaluated to address uncertainty in factors such as hydrogen leakage rates and NOx emissions from hydrogen aircraft. This assessment will provide the foundation for understanding the magnitude of the environmental benefits and costs of hydrogen-fueled aviation.

How to cite: Gibney, E., Eastham, S., Allroggen, F., and Barrett, S.: Atmospheric Impacts of Hydrogen as a Sustainable Aviation Fuel, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-11991, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11991, 2024.

15:35–15:45
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EGU24-7909
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Margaux Vals, Etienne Terrenoire, and Nicolas Bonne

Alternative aviation fuels represent a promising approach to reduce contrails climate effect. In the frame of Cirrus H2 project (DGAC funding), the influence of fuel composition on exhaust plumes emission, and therefore on contrails, is investigated using the 1D detailed microphysical code MoMiE (Modèle Microphysique pour Effluents) developed at ONERA1,2.

In its most recent version the code has been adapted to Sustainable Alternative Fuels (SAF)2. It includes heterogenous freezing with soot activation by sulfur and organic species, as well as homogeneous freezing of liquid droplets of hydrated sulfates and organics, accounting for the competition between both nucleation modes. Chemiionization, brownian coagulation of particles, ice sublimation and condensation are also represented. The code outputs the different aerosols distributions (size and number) of sulfates, organics, dry soot, activated soot, and ice particles, homogeneously and heterogeneously formed. It has also been completed by the implementation of the entrainment of ambient particles (background soot, sulfates and ice particles), which are expected to play a significant role in the case of SAF, as these fuels drastically reduce soot and sulfur emissions in comparison to classical fossile kerosene fuels.

The work presented here aims at adapting the microphysics of contrail formation included in MoMiE to the case of hydrogen fuel emissions. In the case of a full hydrogen fuel composition, effluents are essentially composed of water vapor and the microphysical processes of the contrail formation are expected to mainly involve the background particles. Different simulations will be performed to explore the mechanisms of contrail formation in this particular case, and will be confronted to the cases of kerosene and SAF emissions. Advancement and results of this study will be presented and discussed during the conference.

1Vancassel X. et al., Numerical simulation of aerosols in an aircraft wake using a 3D LES solver and a detailed microphysical model, International Journal of Sustainable Aviation, 2014

2Rojo C. et al., Impact of alternative jet fuels on aircraft-induced aerosols, Fuel, 2014

How to cite: Vals, M., Terrenoire, E., and Bonne, N.: Modeling the formation of contrails produced by H2 fuel emissions, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-7909, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-7909, 2024.

Coffee break
Chairpersons: Mariano Mertens, Leonidas Ntziachristos
Session 2: Non-CO2 Climate Effect of Aviation
16:15–16:25
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EGU24-14794
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Christoph Mahnke, Rita Gomes, Ulrich Bundke, Marcel Berg, Helmut Ziereis, Monica Sharma, Mattia Righi, Johannes Hendricks, Andreas Zahn, and Andreas Petzold

The influence of aviation on atmospheric aerosol, its processing, and its implications for climate are still areas associated with significant uncertainties. We carried out an in-depth examination of the characteristics of atmospheric aerosols linked to aviation by analysing aircraft emissions observed during missions of the IAGOS-CARIBIC Flying Laboratory.

Equipped with a wide variety of aerosol and trace gas instrumentation, the IAGOS-CARIBIC Flying Laboratory conducted 42 operational flights on a Lufthansa Airbus A340-600 passenger aircraft from July 2018 to March 2020. These flights included routes from Munich, Germany, to various destinations in North America, South Africa, and East Asia. We developed and implemented a method to automatically identify aircraft exhaust plumes based on the 1 Hz resolved NOy and aerosol data sets. Between 2018 and 2020, this method identified over 1100 distinct aircraft plumes, offering a robust statistical foundation and global perspectives on aviation's influence on aerosol and trace gas characteristics. For each plume, the measured parameters were further divided into their respective background and plume excess values.

The analysis of the plume excess properties, such as the non-volatile aerosol fraction, shows similar characteristics independent of the emission altitude. Notably, the emitted aerosol predominantly existed as an external mixture in contrast to the mostly internally mixed background aerosol, even at a mean plume age of 1 to 3 hours. For the large accumulation mode particles (diameter > 250 nm) no enhancement above the background variability could be detected in the aircraft plume. Furthermore, we discuss the particle emission indices (EI's) derived from our aircraft plume analysis in comparison to the particle EI's used in global models and those reported from aircraft engine certification measurements.

How to cite: Mahnke, C., Gomes, R., Bundke, U., Berg, M., Ziereis, H., Sharma, M., Righi, M., Hendricks, J., Zahn, A., and Petzold, A.: Aviation-induced aerosol particles within the UTLS: Properties and processing observed from the IAGOS-CARIBIC Flying Laboratory, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-14794, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-14794, 2024.

16:25–16:35
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EGU24-20326
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Yann Cohen, Didier Hauglustaine, Nicolas Bellouin, Sebastian Eastham, Marianne Tronstad Lund, Sigrun Matthes, Mattia Righi, Agnieszka Skowron, and Robin Thor

Aircraft emissions consist of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), aerosols (black carbon and sulfate) and water vapour. The non-CO2 effects have been recently evaluated as twice the CO2 effects regarding their radiative forcing of climate in 2018 [1]. Among the non-CO2 effects, nitrogen oxides emissions impact several greenhouse gases concentrations. Through tropospheric ozone production and subsequent increased OH concentrations, it enhances the methane chemical destruction, thus decreasing the stratospheric water vapour content and the methane-linked background ozone levels in the troposphere. The net radiative forcing caused by the aircraft NOx emissions is evaluated as a net positive forcing but still shows important uncertainties.

In order to investigate representation of key mechanisms involved for climate forcing, in the framework of the ACACIA (Advancing the Science for Aviation and Climate) EU project, six global chemistry-climate models have been used to reevaluate the climate effects of NOx and aerosol aircraft emissions on atmospheric composition following a common protocol. As a first step, the standard runs have been assessed regarding ozone, carbon monoxide (CO), water vapour and reactive nitrogen (NOy) against the IAGOS measurements during 1994- 2018, separately in the upper troposphere and in the lower stratosphere.

As a second step, the models have been used to assess the impact of NOx and aerosol emissions on atmospheric composition. The subsonic aircraft perturbations are calculated based on the CEDS aircraft emission inventories [2] for the present-day conditions and based on different socioeconomic scenarios [3] for future (2050) conditions. Several sensitivity simulations will be presented in order to investigate the sensitivity of the results to background atmospheric conditions (present, future) and to lightning emissions. Changes in atmospheric composition will be presented and compared for the different models and scenarios.

 

Acknowledgement:

This study was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 875036 within the Aeronautics project ACACIA, and by the French Ministère de la Transition écologique et Solidaire (grant no. DGAC 382 N2021-39), with support from France’s Plan National de Relance et de Résilience (PNRR) and the European Union’s NextGenerationEU.

 

 

References:

  • [1] S. Lee, D.W. Fahey, A. Skowron, M.R. Allen, U. Burkhardt, Q. Chen, S.J. Doherty, S. Freeman, P.M. Forster, J. Fuglestvedt, A. Gettelman, R.R. De León, L.L. Lim, M. T. Lund, R.J. Millar, B. Owen, J.E. Penner, G. Pitari, M.J. Prather, R. Sausen, and L. J. Wilcox, Atmospheric Environment 244, 117834 (2021)
  • [2] M. Hoesly, S. J. Smith, L. Feng, Z. Klimont, G. Janssens-Maenhout, T. Pitkanen, J. Seibert, L. Vu, R. J. Andres, R. M. Bolt, T. C. Bond, L. Dawidowski, N. Kholod, J. Kurokawa, M. Li, L. Liu, Z. Lu, M. C. P. Moura, P. R. O’Rourke, and Q. Zhang, Geosci. Model Develop. 11, 369-408 (2018)
  • [3] J. Gidden, K. Riahi, S. J. Smith, S. Fujimori, G. Luderer, E. Kriegler, D. P. van Vuuren, M. van den Berg, L. Feng, D. Klein, K. Calvin, J. C. Doelman, S. Frank, O.Fricko, Harmsen, T. Hasegawa, P. Havlik, J. Hilaire, R. Hoesly, J. Horing, A. Popp, E. Stehfest, and K. Takahashi, Geosci. Model Develop. 12, 1443-1475 (2019)

How to cite: Cohen, Y., Hauglustaine, D., Bellouin, N., Eastham, S., Lund, M. T., Matthes, S., Righi, M., Skowron, A., and Thor, R.: Impact of aircraft NOx and aerosol emissions on atmospheric composition: a model intercomparison, and a multimodel assessment using the airborne IAGOS data, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-20326, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-20326, 2024.

16:35–16:45
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EGU24-14772
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On-site presentation
Mattia Righi, Johannes Hendricks, Christof Beer, and Sabine Brinkop

The current understanding of the impact of aviation-induced aerosol on the microphysical properties of clouds and the resulting climate effects is still regarded as highly uncertain. In this study, a global aerosol-climate model is applied to quantify (i) the impact of aviation-induced soot on cirrus clouds, and (ii) the impact of aviation-induced particles on low-level liquid-phase clouds. For the soot-cirrus effect, a radiative forcing in the range of −35 to 13 mW m−2 is simulated, depending on the assumed ice nucleating properties of aviation soot, but with a low statistical significance in several cases. A comparison with previous studies shows a general lack of consensus, which could not be reconciled even within the broad range of assumptions on the ice nucleating properties of aviation soot examined with the model. The effect of aviation-induced particles on low-level clouds results in a radiative forcing of –64 mW m-2 for present-day conditions in the CMIP6 emission inventory, and of –126 to –83 mW m-2 in 2050 under different scenarios. This mostly confirms the estimates of previous studies, although these are very sensitive to the assumed size distribution of emitted particles and to the fuel sulfur content of the aviation fleet. The main uncertainties behind these cloud effects are explored in the context of the existing literature and suggestions for refined estimates are discussed.

How to cite: Righi, M., Hendricks, J., Beer, C., and Brinkop, S.: Global model simulations on the impacts of aviation-induced aerosol on clouds and climate, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-14772, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-14772, 2024.

16:45–16:50
16:50–17:10
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EGU24-5719
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solicited
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On-site presentation
Volker Matthias

Atmospheric chemistry transport models (CTMs) are since long time an important tool for studying multi-phase chemical reactions, particle formation and deposition processes of numerous trace gases and primary particles emitted into the atmosphere. These models need emission and meteorological information as essential inputs. Emissions are more than just a static inventory, they have dynamical spatial and temporal components. Therefore, separate model systems are typically applied for calculating the CTM input data. Their development and comprehensive evaluation are essential for enabling progress in air quality modelling. Emission control politics, in addition, need well suited tools to assess the overall impact of often costly emission reduction measures beforehand.

This contribution focuses on emission models for ground based transport, in particular for ship traffic and road traffic. While state-of-the-art ship emission models apply bottom-up approaches that are based on ship position data and technical ship characteristics, road traffic emission models cannot treat each vehicle individually. Nevertheless, road traffic activity data can also be combined with emission factors for certain vehicle types and emission standards. However, diurnal profiles and weekday dependencies are often not included in the activities. How highly resolved traffic activity data from mobile phones can be used was demonstrated during the lockdowns in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Google mobility data or Apple data was widely used to improve road traffic emission estimates in spring 2020.

In the presentation, challenges and limitations of ground based traffic emission model systems are discussed. In addition, their power for improving air quality simulations as well as for constructing consistent future emission scenarios, that are essential for intelligent emission reduction policies, are illustrated.

How to cite: Matthias, V.: Challenges in traffic emission modeling and their application, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-5719, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-5719, 2024.

17:10–17:20
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EGU24-9428
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Quentin Gunti, Benjamin Chazeau, Brice Temime-Roussel, Irène Xueref-Remy, Alexandre Armengaud, Henri Wortham, and Barbara D'Anna

Maritime traffic can have a significant local impact, particularly in port areas during the docking and undocking phases. Air quality measurements conducted in certain port cities show that ship emissions are quantitatively comparable to those from road traffic and are contributing to a significant deterioration of air quality. This pollution is now recognized as a real societal problem and a proven danger for human health. Since the reduction of sulphur content in ship fuels in 2020, only few studies have been carried out to analyse in detail the contribution of shipping to urban pollution.

A month-long measurement campaign was carried out from August 24 to September 21, 2021, in the port of Toulon on the French Mediterranean coast. Particle concentration, size distribution, and chemical composition as well as gas concentrations were measured using state-of-the-art instruments such as Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS, TSI), High-Resolution Time-of-Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS, Aerodyne), Multi-Angle Absorption Photometer (MAAP, Thermo), Gas Concentration Analyzer (G2401, Picarro), Optical Particle Counter (OPC, Grimm), Condensation Particle Counter (EnviCPC100, Palas), Aethalometer (AE33, Magee) and various gas analyzers (100E, 200E and 400E from Teledyne).

In this study, the emission factors (EFs) for pollutants emitted from shipping were determined using a carbon mass balance approach. A total of 50 exhaust plumes was identified and quantified.

In addition, the organic fraction of the particles measured by HR-ToF-AMS was used to populate a source apportionment model based on positive matrix factorization (PMF) method.  The source deconvolution was performed for mass spectra with mass/charge ratios (m/z) ranging from 12 to 256 with a time step of 1 minute. Besides, mass spectra derived from docked ferries were used as constraining profiles. The model has been supplemented with spectra from the literature, in particular hydrocarbon-type and cooking-type organic aerosols. These features enhanced the deconvolution process, enabling emissions associated with cooking activities, road traffic and shipping to be distinguished. Ancillary measurements such as meteorological data, particle number, black carbon, and gaseous pollutants were used to underpin the physical accuracy of each organic aerosol factor in the source apportionment model. Finally, an eight-factor solution was chosen: three organic factors were associated to shipping, a hydrocarbon-type organic aerosol (HOA) associated with traffic exhaust emissions, a cooking-type organic aerosol (COA), a less oxidized organic aerosol (LOOA), a more oxidized organic aerosol (MOOA) and a last factor of intermediate oxidation.

The results of this analysis underscore the significant influence of maritime emission on urban pollution in the port area of Toulon.

How to cite: Gunti, Q., Chazeau, B., Temime-Roussel, B., Xueref-Remy, I., Armengaud, A., Wortham, H., and D'Anna, B.: Impacts of shipping emissions on air quality: emission factors and PM source apportionment in the coastal city of Toulon, France, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-9428, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-9428, 2024.

17:20–17:30
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EGU24-17467
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Virtual presentation
Helene Muri, Diogo Kramel, and Anders Hammer Strømman

Shipping plays a substantial role in global anthropogenic emissions and is a particularly challenging sector to decarbonize. COP28 emphasized the urgent need for accelerated emissions reduction in such sectors, and the IMO has a net-zero goal for 2050. Hence tools such as the MariTeam model presented here are essential in order to understand not only current emissions from shipping, but also the effect of decarbonization efforts like alternative fuels. The MariTeam model, a high-resolution AIS-based ship emission model, emerges as a crucial tool. It goes beyond merely assessing current shipping emissions, delving into the impact of decarbonization strategies, such as alternative fuels. 

Utilizing ship technical data, including engine size and vessel dimensions, MariTeam calculates emissions for various species like CO2, CH4, N2O, BC, OC, CO, NOx, and SOx on a global scale. Our presentation includes a comprehensive inventory of current shipping emissions in addition to the changes when alternative fuels are introduced. 

To understand the climate effects, we employed the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM), coupled with MariTeam. Notably, shipping emissions lead to significant pollutant transport, particularly black carbon (BC) to the Arctic, with a 40% surface concentration increase, with the potential to accelerate cryosphere melt. Current shipping emissions are also found to mask global warming, impacting multiple aspects of the climate system. When exploring alternatives like blue ammonia and LNG, methane and nitrous oxide gain significance. Our results emphasize the importance of considering well-to-wake versus tank-to-wake, indicating the complexities when considering mitigation efforts for the shipping sector. 

How to cite: Muri, H., Kramel, D., and Strømman, A. H.: Assessing climatic impacts of shipping fuels: integrating MariTeam emission inventories with Earth system modeling , EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-17467, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-17467, 2024.

17:30–17:40
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EGU24-19573
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Isheeka Dasgupta, Mario Feinauer, Nina Thomsen, Jens Hellekes, and Simone Ehrenberger

Road transport is responsible for two-thirds of transport related greenhouse emissions. To assess the impact of road transport on climate change, different model approaches have been applied. For global emissions, integrated assessment models (IAMs) have been established to asses the impact of different sectors on climate change. IAMs are capable of linking technical and socioeconomic development as well as policy decisions to emission scenarios. However, they offer limited differentiation in analyzing specific subsectors, transport modes, countries, or vehicle technologies. To address this gap, our aim is to calculate emissions from different road transport modes bottom-up for various world regions for the reference year 2019.

The established models for determining transport activities and emissions consider different transport modes like passenger car, various truck classes, and two- and three-wheelers. Drivetrain and country specific emission factors are derived and subsequently aggregated according to the stock fleet in 2019. Different approaches and data sources are considered for estimating the drivetrain specific emission factors of each country analyzed. For giving a comprehensive overview of emissions, twenty species have been calculated, including CO2, CH4, CO, N2O, NMVOC, NO2, PM10, PM2.5, SO2 etc. Additionally, non-exhaust emissions have been analyzed. In this paper, we present the methodology and results of the emission calculations for the reference year 2019.

Regarding the passenger car transport activity, the data for 2019 is determined based on historical motorization rates for representative countries. Gompertz functions are estimated that represent the relationship between economic development and car ownership. The result is motorization rates in number of cars per 1000 inhabitants for each country. Together with population data, average annual mileages per vehicle and occupancy rates, the annual car traffic demand is calculated. The transport performance of the 2- and 3-wheeler, rail and bus modes is calculated in relation to car transport performance on the basis of modal split assumptions.

For the commercial vehicles, less statistical data is available. Therefore, for non-OECD countries where the transport activity in ton-km is not available, a similarity analysis has been performed to derive an approximate behavior. The 2019 commercial transport activity was mapped using fixed effects models. Data up to 2013 was used as training data for the regression. In order to obtain modeled results, economic and population data from 2019 was used in the model.

For the spatial distribution of emissions, a new approach based on traffic data counts is presented. This enables a more precise allocation of emissions, which is important for certain pollutants. With this approach, we achieve a spatial resolution of 0.1°.

The resulting emission inventory for road transport provides additional information of uncertainty factors along the entire modelling chain and allows a detailed evaluation of the results for climate modelers and practitioners. Moreover, the models developed in with this approach allow the creation of scenarios for the future trend for road traffic emissions. These scenarios can take into account specific technological developments and measures for individual modes of transport and countries.

How to cite: Dasgupta, I., Feinauer, M., Thomsen, N., Hellekes, J., and Ehrenberger, S.: A new approach for the bottom-up calculation of global road transport emissions, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-19573, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-19573, 2024.

17:40–17:50
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EGU24-2958
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Zhulin Qi, Yixuan Zheng, Yueyi Feng, Chuchu Chen, Yu Lei, Wenbo Xue, Yanling Xu, Zeyuan Liu, Xiufeng Ni, Qingyu Zhang, Gang Yan, and Jinnan Wang

The sustained growth in on-road transportation demand poses an increasing challenge for countries in mitigating air pollution and addressing climate change. Revealing how varying socioeconomic and policy factors have contributed to synergies or trade-offs between CO2 and air pollution emissions is crucial for effectively co-controlling carbon-pollution emissions. Here, based on detailed air pollution and CO2 emission inventories from China’s on-road transportation over 2010-2020 and the Logarithmic Mean Divisia index (LMDI) analysis, we explore the on-road synergetic evolution trends among pollution and CO2 emissions and identify the co-drivers influencing carbon-pollution co-emissions. We find that the estimated sectoral emissions of VOCs, NOx, PM2.5, and CO declined by 49.9%, 25.9%, 75.2%, and 63.5%, respectively, while CO2 emissions increased by 46.1% in China over 2010-2020. The vehicle-type-specific analysis further highlights the crucial role of light-duty passenger vehicles and heavy-duty trucks in simultaneously improving air quality and mitigating CO2 emissions, given their synergies in emission growth of VOCs-CO2 and NOx-CO2, respectively. The driver analysis indicates that socioeconomic growth and rising transportation demand are major co-drivers of carbon-pollution emission growth, while the implementation of control policies, particularly advances in emission efficiency, can facilitate co-reductions. Specifically, in the passenger subsector, advances in emission efficiency and changes in travel behavior are identified as the most efficient co-drivers for synergistic emission reduction. The gradual proliferation of new energy vehicles also provides additional synergistic reductions. In the freight subsector, improved freight economic efficiency and optimized freight transport structure are identified as other two co-drivers of synergistic emission reduction. Regional disparities further emphasize the need for policy refinement, including reducing dependency on fuel vehicles in the passenger subsector and prioritizing co-reduction strategies in high-emission provinces in the freight subsector. Overall, our study confirms the effectiveness of China’s on-road control policies and provides valuable insights for future policy makers in China and other similarly positioned developing countries seeking to reduce CO2 and air pollutant emissions simultaneously.

How to cite: Qi, Z., Zheng, Y., Feng, Y., Chen, C., Lei, Y., Xue, W., Xu, Y., Liu, Z., Ni, X., Zhang, Q., Yan, G., and Wang, J.: Co-drivers of air pollutant and CO2 emissions from on-road transportation in China 2010-2020, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-2958, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-2958, 2024.

17:50–18:00
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EGU24-13665
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Impacts of Diverse Vehicle Emissions on Ozone Levels in Beijing: Insights into Source Apportionment and Formation Mechanism
(withdrawn)
Jingyuan Cao

Posters on site: Wed, 17 Apr, 16:15–18:00 | Hall X5

Display time: Wed, 17 Apr 14:00–Wed, 17 Apr 18:00
Chairpersons: Sigrun Matthes, Patrick Peter, Leonidas Ntziachristos
Air Traffic Poster
X5.88
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EGU24-10038
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Highlight
Jan Klenner, Marianne Tronstad Lund, Helene Muri, and Anders Hammer Strømman

Aviation emissions significantly contribute to global warming, necessitating reductions to align with the 1.5°C target. Beyond carbon dioxide emissions from fossil jet fuel combustion, non-CO2 emissions play a crucial role, exhibiting diverse impacts on atmospheric chemistry and radiative forcing based on geographic location, altitude, and time. To enhance comprehension of aviation emissions and potential alternative fuels, we introduce the AviTeam model—a data-driven, high-resolution model utilizing ADS-B data to quantify emissions of various species, including NOx, CO, BC, SO2, H2O, and hydrocarbons, alongside CO2. 

Integrating AviTeam's emission inventory with the OsloCTM3 chemical transport model allows us to assess the regional impact of aviation emissions. We explore the atmospheric chemistry effects of transitioning to liquid hydrogen and synthetic fuels as alternatives to fossil jet fuel. Additionally, a contrail formation potential analysis reveals that hydrogen exhibits a higher non-persistent contrail-forming potential than kerosene due to its elevated water vapor emissions. Our findings suggest that in high-latitude regions, adopting alternative aviation fuels may yield different mitigation effects with fewer trade-offs between non-CO2 and CO2 impacts than global averages suggest. However, the mitigation potential of alternative aviation fuels from a life cycle perspective is constrained to 44–56% reduction in GWP100, attributed to short-lived climate forcings and additional fuel demand for liquid hydrogen. Notably, the mitigation potential is less pronounced on shorter flights. Our results underscore the importance of integrating models like AviTeam with chemical transport models and life cycle perspectives to emphasize the significance of accounting for local atmospheric conditions and better understand variability in aviation emissions studies. 

How to cite: Klenner, J., Lund, M. T., Muri, H., and Strømman, A. H.: Emission location shape atmospheric and climate effects of alternative fuels in domestic aviation, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-10038, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10038, 2024.

X5.89
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EGU24-16192
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ECS
Josef Zink and Simon Unterstrasser

Hydrogen-powered aircraft have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions to zero. However, a significant portion of the global warming attributed to aviation arises from non-CO2 effects, including contrails. The thermodynamic state and microphysical pathways that form these contrails differ substantially between hydrogen and conventional kerosene combustion. Therefore, the overall climate impact of contrails formed by hydrogen combustion is not yet known and needs to be assessed by Global Circulation Models (GCMs). The contrail parametrization in a GCM cannot resolve the contrail formation processes. However, these early processes have a large influence on the contrail life cycle and should therefore be included in the contrail initialization of a GCM. Here, a crucial ingredient is the number of ice crystals formed during the jet phase.

In this study, we present a parametrization that provides a link between the outcome of a high-resolution model and the contrail initialization in a GCM. For that, we performed contrail formation simulations with the particle-based Lagrangian Cloud Module (LCM) in a box model approach. We assume that contrail droplets and ice crystals form solely on entrained ambient aerosols. With our simulation setup, we aim to cover the entire parameter space relevant for contrail formation in the case of hydrogen combustion. This involves varying background meteorological conditions, ambient aerosol properties, and engine exit conditions, resulting in more than 20,000 simulations.

The simulation results show that the number of formed ice crystals is mostly sensitive to a variation of the ambient aerosol background concentration, followed by a variation of the ambient temperature. We identify a parameter subspace where the number of ice crystals becomes almost independent of the size and chemical composition of the ambient aerosols.

Furthermore, we performed simulations with two coexisting background aerosol ensembles differing in mean size and/or solubility. The simulation results show that coarse mode particles have neither a direct nor an indirect influence on the number of formed ice crystals if their number concentration is 2-3 orders of magnitude lower than that of a coexisting Aitken/accumulation mode. Furthermore, the ice crystal number from simulations with the two coexisting background aerosol ensembles can be reconstructed by a weighted mean of two single simulations, each containing only one of the two aerosol ensembles. This allows to construct a simpler parametrization still covering the case of two coexisting aerosol ensembles.

We used the simulation results to train a shallow feed-forward neural network that maps the box model input parameters to the number of formed ice crystals. This neural network serves as a fit function of our simulation results, which can be implemented in a GCM for contrail initialization.

This work contributes to the collaborative effort of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Airbus in assessing the climate impact of H2 contrails.

How to cite: Zink, J. and Unterstrasser, S.: Parametrizing the number of formed ice crystals in contrails from hydrogen combustion, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-16192, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-16192, 2024.

X5.90
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EGU24-16300
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ECS
Annemarie Lottermoser and Simon Unterstraßer

The effort to make aviation more climate-friendly requires to develop new propulsion technologies in comparison to the conventional kerosene combustion engines. Hydrogen (H2) combustion is seen as a promising, green alternative. Assessing the climate impact of contrails, which is a major contribution to the aviation’s non-C02 effects, is an essential part of developing climate-friendly aviation. Our study investigates the properties of contrails behind H2-powered aircraft, in particular in comparison to conventional contrails from kerosene combustion. For this, high-resolution simulations of individual contrails over their full lifecycle are performed employing the established EULAG-LCM model (a large-eddy simulation (LES) model with fully coupled particle-based ice microphysics). Young contrails and their interaction with the wake vortices are simulated as well as their transition into contrail-cirrus over time periods of several hours.

Recent simulations of contrail formation behind engines with H2 combustion have shown that the number of created ice crystals is smaller than in conventional contrails, as the exhaust plumes are expected to be void of soot particles, on which contrail ice crystals typically form.
Previous simulations of the early contrail evolution during the vortex phase and the contrail-cirrus evolution have been performed for a broad parameter space regarding variations in meteorological and aircraft-related quantities. However, these simulations were restricted to contrails from conventional kerosene combustion.

In order to investigate the influence of a H­2 propulsion system on the contrail evolution, two input parameters are adapted: The amount of emitted water vapour is larger and the number of initial ice crystals is smaller.  Moreover, we extend our set of atmospheric scenarios to higher ambient temperatures, as H2 contrails can form in warmer environments where ice crystal formation in kerosene plumes does not occur.

We explore the H2 contrail evolution for different idealised atmospheric scenarios. It is well-known that young contrails are strongly affected by the trailing wake vortices and a substantial fraction of the initially formed ice crystals can get lost due to adiabatic heating in the descending vortex pair. We clearly see that this ice crystal loss is reduced if fewer ice crystals are present in the beginning. On the other hand, ice crystal loss is more substantial for ambient temperatures above 225K.
Looking at the aged contrail-cirrus, we investigate in particular the evolution of the total extinction, which we assume to be a proxy of a change in the contrail climate impact. We observe that the initially prescribed ice crystal number, ambient temperature and relative humidity have a strong impact on the contrail lifecycle. Increasing the water vapour emission is, however, of secondary importance.

The total extinction of H2 contrails is significantly lower than in the case of kerosene contrails. Hence, our simulations suggest that the usage of H2 combustion as propulsion technology might strongly reduce the climate impact of a single contrail.

This work contributes to the collaborative effort of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Airbus in assessing the climate impact of H2 contrails.

How to cite: Lottermoser, A. and Unterstraßer, S.: High-resolution modelling of contrails formed behind hydrogen-powered aircraft, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-16300, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-16300, 2024.

X5.91
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EGU24-17410
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ECS
Joel Ponsonby, Roger Teoh, and Marc Stettler

Contrails are estimated to account for the majority of the present-day warming by the aviation industry. Their formation relies on the availability of aerosol in the exhaust plume, upon which water vapour can condense and subsequently freeze to form contrail ice crystals Most modern aircraft operate in the soot-rich regime, releasing soot particles with a number emission index (EIn) of between 1014 and1016 (kg-fuel)-1. Under these conditions, the number concentration of soot particles and contrail ice crystals scales linearly. For this reason, existing global contrail simulations typically assume that the number concentration of ice crystals and soot particles are equivalent. However, the use of alternative fuels such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and liquid hydrogen, and the adoption of cleaner lean-burn combustors in the existing fleet are likely to drive the soot EIn into the soot-poor regime < 1013 (kg-fuel)-1. Here, (semi) volatile material and entrained ambient particles can compete with soot for plume supersaturation and the relationship between the number concentration of soot particles and contrail ice crystals is non-linear. These effects are not currently accounted for in existing contrail models used to simulate regional and global contrail climate forcing.  

In this work, we extend the parcel model proposed by Kärcher et al. [1] to account for the activation of volatile particulate matter (vPM) in the soot-poor regime and integrate this into the contrail cirrus prediction model (CoCiP) [2]. We explore the relationship between the soot EIn and the apparent ice emissions index (AEI) in the soot-rich and soot-poor regimes, evaluating the model’s sensitivity to different aerosol properties, including particle hygroscopicity and characteristics of the particle size distribution. Preliminary results show a linear relationship between the soot EIn and AEI in the soot-rich regime, consistent with previous work [1]. However, in the soot-poor regime, the AEI: (i) could be up to two orders of magnitude larger than the soot EIn; (ii) increases with decreasing ambient temperatures and (iii) depends on the assumed particle properties of the (semi) volatile and ambient particle modes. These results suggest that existing global contrail simulations may underestimate the contrail climate forcing for a small subset of flights with soot EIn < 1014 (kg-fuel)-1.

The model developed in this work will be implemented in a global contrail simulation, incorporating activation of vPM. A sensitivity analysis will also be performed, and the results validated with in-situ measurements from the recent Emissions and Climate Impact of Alternative Fuels (ECLIF) III experimental campaign [3].

References

[1] Bernd Kärcher et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2015, 120, 7893–7927.

[2] Ulrich Schumann, Geoscientific Model Development, 2012, 5, 43–580.

[3] Raphael Märkl et al., [EGUsphere preprint].

How to cite: Ponsonby, J., Teoh, R., and Stettler, M.: Towards an improved treatment of (semi) volatile particle activation in contrail models, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-17410, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-17410, 2024.

X5.92
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EGU24-15562
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ECS
Nicolas Bonne

Condensation trails (contrails) are considered the main non CO2 effect of aviation on global warming (Lee 2021) However, the uncertainty remains important and therefore a better understanding of the physical process underlying contrail formation is required. For a Jet A-1 kerosene fuel burned with a rich burn engine, the formation of contrails is mainly due to the condensation of water around soots emitted by the engine. In the case of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) or lean burn engines, the soots emitted are in very weak quantity so to let other nucleation process to occur (Kärcher 2018) such as homogeneous nucleation based on water and sulfuric acid (Rojo 2014). In order to perform contrail formation simulation with the details of the jet dilution due to the interaction between the plume and the aerodynamic of the aircraft, it is important to include the nucleation process strongly coupled with the aerodynamic in the simulation. This has been done for nucleation around soots (Khou 2016) but not for homogeneous nucleation. In this work, we propose a mix Lagrangian Eulerian approach in order to evaluate the homogeneous nucleation.

Lee D.S. et al., The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018, Atmospheric Environment, 2021

Kärcher B, Formation and radiative forcing of contrail cirrus, Nature, 2018

Rojo C. et al., Impact of alternative jet fuels on aircraft-induced aerosols, Fuel, 2014

Khou JC. et al., CFD simulation of contrail formation in the near field of a commercial aircraft: Effect of fuel sulfur content, Atmospheric Chemistry, 2016

How to cite: Bonne, N.: A mix Lagrangian Eulerian approach for volatile particles and contrails formation, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-15562, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-15562, 2024.

X5.93
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EGU24-10398
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ECS
Michael Xu, Vincent Meijer, Steven Barrett, and Sebastian Eastham

Aircraft induced cirrus clouds are estimated to account for 57% of aviation’s current-day climate impact, but this value is highly uncertain with the fidelity and biases in meteorological data being significant contributing factors. Our work aims to address this uncertainty and to provide empirical evaluation of multiple contrail modeling approaches. First, we use a dataset of contrail cross sections observed from the CALIOP orbital LIDAR that were attributed to specific flights to calibrate parameterizations for the initial widths and depths of contrails. We then examine the effect of systematic biases in wind, humidity and temperature, analyzing which modifications to the data provide the best agreement between a simulated contrail (using the APCEMM contrail model) and observations. Finally, we evaluate the degree of accuracy of the calibrated APCEMM model across a larger dataset and compare the results to those from the widely-used CoCiP model.

 

How to cite: Xu, M., Meijer, V., Barrett, S., and Eastham, S.: Empirical Calibration of Contrail Models based on LIDAR Observations, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-10398, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10398, 2024.

X5.94
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EGU24-10040
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ECS
Sidy Diarra, Jean-Luc Baray, Nadège Montoux, Patrick Fréville, Fréderic Peyrin, Philippe Cacault, and Philippe Keckhut

The cirrus clouds impact on the radiation budget of the Earth depends mainly of their optical thickness and altitude (Heymsfield et al., 2017). The contrails formed from aircraft emissions bring an additional impact to that of natural cirrus clouds (Kärcher, 2018). Their formation and potential evolution in cirrus clouds depend on the thermodynamical state of the atmosphere at fine scales, in particular of the saturation of water vapour with respect to ice. However, at their altitude of formation (~10 km), few reliable measurements of the water vapour are available.

In this study, we use observational data on the presence of crystals through their scattering observed by lidar and water vapor measurements using the Raman scattering technique (Fréville et al., 2015). Observations from standard meteorological balloon soundings (temperature, water vapor, and wind) (Dupont et al., 2020), as well as meteorological reanalyses (ECMWF), will be also analyzed to better characterize the overall context, considering finer vertical resolutions.

A first part of this study is to evaluate the quality of Modem M10 radiosondes humidity measurements available from the MeteoFrance network by comparison with ECMWF ERA-5 analysis. A second part of this study is to document contrails formation and evolution using a combination of instruments: an ADS-B recorder to identify aircraft type and position, a full sky camera to detect the presence of contrails and a collocated lidar to retrieve water vapour concentration profiles and macrophysical and optical properties of the contrail. The methodology and first results will be presented on a case study identified the 2nd of June 2023 above Clermont-Ferrand (France). Contrails have been observed when ECMWF ERA-5 relative humidity was around 115% and stay visible on the full-sky camera during more than 2 hours. This study is carried out in the framework of the European project BeCoM (Grant agreement ID: 101056885) whose main objective is to reduce the contrail radiative forcing.

 

Keywords: water vapour, cirrus, contrail, Lidar, camera.

                                

Bibliography:

Kärcher et al., (2018). Formation and radiative forcing of contrail cirrus. Nature communications9(1), 1824.

Heymsfield et al., (2017). Cirrus clouds. Meteorological Monographs58, 2-1.

Fréville et al. (2015). Lidar developments at Clermont-Ferrand – France for atmospheric observation, Sensors, 2015, 15, 3041-3069; doi:10.3390/s150203041

Dupont et al., (2020). Characterization and corrections of relative humidity measurement from Meteomodem M10 radiosondes at midlatitude stations. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology37(5), 857-871.

How to cite: Diarra, S., Baray, J.-L., Montoux, N., Fréville, P., Peyrin, F., Cacault, P., and Keckhut, P.: Comparisons of radiosonde water vapor measurements with ECMWF ERA-5 and contrails observations above Clermont-Ferrand (France), EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-10040, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10040, 2024.

X5.95
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EGU24-11846
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ECS
Yun Li, Susanne Rohs, Torben Blomel, Ulrich Bundke, and Andreas Petzold

The so-called ice-supersaturated regions with air parcels in the status of ice supersaturation (ISSRs) are potential formation regions of cirrus, making them of particular interest to contrails and aviation-induced cirrus. Contrail persistence requires slight ice subsaturation to ice supersaturation (Lee et al., 2021; Li et al., 2023); otherwise, ice crystals would sublimate quickly. Contrails and contrail cirrus in regions with high relative humidity with respect to ice (RHice) have been derived to cause a net warming impact in earlier studies (Sausen et al., 2005; Stuber and Forster, 2007; Lee et al., 2021)

Seasonal and regional variabilities and long-term trends of upper tropospheric RHice and ISSRs have been studied using IAGOS routine measurements from passenger aircraft (Petzold et al., 2020; Rohs et al., 2023, see also https://www.iagos.org/). With increasing awareness of the strong climate impact of contrails and contrail cirrus among other aviation emissions, re-routing aircraft to avoid contrail formation becomes an important mitigation target for the aviation industry. However, the correct representation of ISSRs in forecast models is an essential prerequisite to plan robustly more climate-friendly flight trajectories.

In this work, we will show the status of weather forecast models in representing real upper tropospheric ice supersaturation. The near real-time RHice dataset from IAGOS observations, provided post-flight to Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), are used to study the occurrence patterns and favourable spatial and temporal conditions of ISSRs in dense air traffic regions, e.g., the North Atlantic flight corridor. Cases demonstrating the assessment of ISSRs and contrail forecast models at cruise levels with in-situ aircraft observations will be showcased.

[Note: This work is conducted within the framework of the Horizon 2020 project ACACIA with Grant Agreement No. 875036 and the SESAR 3 JU project CICONIA with Grant Agreement No. 101114613.]

How to cite: Li, Y., Rohs, S., Blomel, T., Bundke, U., and Petzold, A.: Upper tropospheric humidity and ISSRs: near real-time flight data delivery, statistics, and application for contrail forecast model assessment, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-11846, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11846, 2024.

X5.96
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EGU24-18183
Marius Bickel, Michael Ponater, Ulrike Burkhardt, Mattia Righi, Johannes Hendricks, and Patrick Jöckel

So far, the various components contributing to the global climate impact of aviation were mostly quantified and ranked on the basis of radiative forcings. However, regarding for example the Paris Agreement, the temperature change at Earth’s surface is the main target parameter, for which radiative forcing is only a proxy. A specific climate sensitivity parameter for contrail cirrus has, so far, not been established.

Here we close this gap for contrail cirrus with specially designed global climate model simulations, equipped with a coupled mixed layer ocean to determine the corresponding surface temperature change. For the first time the climate sensitivity and efficacy parameters were calculated for contrail cirrus. The efficacy of contrail cirrus to warm the Earth’s surface is found to be 62% smaller compared to CO2 in the effective radiative forcing framework. That means that radiative forcings of same magnitude result in a much weaker surface warming for contrail cirrus than for CO2. The origin of the reduced efficacy can be explained in detail by analyzing the related Feedback processes. An opposing response of the natural clouds (even in sign), with decreasing resp. increasing low- and mid-level clouds in case of CO2 resp. contrail cirrus was found to be the main reason. In addition, a more negative Lapse-Rate Feedback was found for contrail cirrus, originating from a non-homogeneous vertical warming, with the largest temperature increase directly below contrail cirrus and decreasing in strength toward Earth’s surface.

The reduced contrail cirrus efficacy substantially affects contrail cirrus mitigation concepts when using climate metrics based on surface temperature change (e.g. GTP or ATR). Therefore, re-routing aiming for contrail cirrus reduction, but leading to an increased fuel consumption and additional CO2 emissions might be much less effective than currently assumed.

How to cite: Bickel, M., Ponater, M., Burkhardt, U., Righi, M., Hendricks, J., and Jöckel, P.: Estimating the Climate Efficacy of Contrail Cirrus on Surface Temperature, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-18183, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18183, 2024.

X5.97
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EGU24-20120
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ECS
Patrick Peter, Sigrun Matthes, Christine Frömming, and Volker Grewe

Aviation has long been linked to environmental problems, including pollution, noise, and climate change. Although CO2 emissions are the primary focus of public discussion, non-CO2 emissions from aviation, such as contrails, nitrogen oxides, or cloud cover caused by aviation, can have comparable impacts on the climate. Previous studies have investigated the impact of different weather conditions on aviation and identified regions that are sensitive to climate change. They have also created data products, such as 4-dimensional climate change functions (CCFs), which enable air traffic management (ATM) to plan for climate-optimized trajectories. However, these functions were only derived for specific regions, seasons, and weather situations [1,2].

The presented research focuses on developing methods to determine the sensitivity of the atmosphere to aviation emissions in relation to climate effects. This is necessary to describe spatially and temporally dependent distributions, which are required to determine climate-optimized aircraft trajectories. While previous studies have focused on characterizing the North Atlantic Flight Corridor region [2], this study aims to extend the geographic scope by performing Lagrangian simulations for the extratropical regions of the northern hemisphere. The modular global climate model EMAC was used in this study to investigate contrail evolution on Lagrangian trajectories. The study analyzed the effects of contrails on the temporal evolution of key contrail formation parameters along these trajectories, as well as their effects on radiation in terms of the radiative forcing concept. With this comprehensive model, we can investigate the physical processes that determine the effects of contrails on climate and study their spatial and temporal variations.

The project leading to this study was funded by the European SESAR programme under Grant Agreement No. 101114785 (CONCERTO). High performance supercomputing resources were used from the German CARA Cluster in Dresden and the DKRZ Cluster in Hamburg.

References:  

[1] Matthes, S., Lührs, B., Dahlmann, K., Grewe, V., Linke, F., Yin, F., Klingaman, E. and Shine, K. P.: Climate-Optimized Trajectories and Robust Mitigation Potential: Flying ATM4E, Aerospace 7(11), 156, 2020.

[2]  Frömming, C., Grewe, V., Brinkop, S., Jöckel, P., Haslerud, A. S., Rosanka, S., van Manen, J., and Matthes, S.: Influence of weather situation on non-CO2 aviation climate effects: the REACT4C climate change functions, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 9151–9172, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9151-2021, 2021.

How to cite: Peter, P., Matthes, S., Frömming, C., and Grewe, V.: Contrail formation in mid-latitudes: Estimating the climate effect of contrails with climate change functions in EMAC using a Lagrangian approach., EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-20120, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-20120, 2024.

X5.98
|
EGU24-17462
Christine Frömming, Sigrun Matthes, Simone Dietmüller, Patrick Peter, Volker Grewe, Katrin Dahlmann, and Patrick Jöckel

Strategic planning of climate-optimal flight trajectories is one option to potentially reduce the climate impact of non-CO2 aviation emissions. Such a measure builds upon detailed knowledge of climate response to aviation emissions at specific locations. So-called climate change functions (CCFs) were calculated by means of a Lagrangian approach within the atmospheric chemistry climate model system EMAC (ECHAM5/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry Model) to provide this information. The CCFs contain temporally and spatially resolved information on the climate effect of standardized non-CO2 aviation emissions, such as water vapour, nitrogen oxides, and effects of contrail cirrus. The initial CCFs were calculated for three specific summer and five winter weather situations covering the Northern Atlantic flight corridor (Frömming et al., 2021).

The present study (Frömming et al., in prep) describes updates over previous CCF calculations. These include the geographical expansion of the CCF domain from the Northern Atlantic towards EU and USA, the calculation of CCFs for a weather situation in spring, a higher spatial resolution for contrail CCFs, employing nudged climate model simulations enabling the comparison with observations, a consistent methodology for instantaneous to adjusted radiative forcing conversion, a more sophisticated choice of future emission scenario and the inclusion of efficacies.

As the calculation of CCFs demands very high computational effort, they cannot be used for operational eco-efficient flight planning. For that reason, more generally applicable algorithmic Climate Change Functions (aCCFs) were derived (van Manen and Grewe, 2019; Yin et al., 2023) based on statistics of weather-related similarities within the CCFs. The aCCFs require only a small number of local meteorological parameters taken from numerical weather forecast models and represent a fast methodology to predict the specific climate impact per unit emission for a certain location, altitude and time.

Since the new CCFs are located partially outside the initial aCCF domain and time, an independent comparison of CCFs and aCCFs is performed. Results indicate that, depending on species, particular attention is required, when aCCFs - developed for winter and summer - are transferred to other seasons, e.g. spring, when midlatitudes might be influenced by polar airmasses. Further studies expanding the spatial and temporal domains of CCFs appear necessary.

References:

Frömming, C., Grewe, V., Brinkop, S., Jöckel, P., Haslerud, A. S., Rosanka, S., Van Manen, J., and Matthes, S.: Influence of weather situation on non-CO2 aviation climate effects: The REACT4C climate change functions, ACP, 21, 9151 – 9172, 2021.

van Manen, J. and Grewe, V.: Algorithmic climate change functions for the use in eco-efficient flight planning, Transportation Research Part D: Transp. Env., 67, 388–405, 2019.

Yin, F., Grewe, V., Castino, F., Rao, P., Matthes, S., Dahlmann, K., Dietmüller, S., Frömming, C., Yamashita, H., Peter, P., et al.: Predicting the climate impact of aviation for en-route emissions: the algorithmic climate change function submodel ACCF 1.0 of EMAC 2.53, GMD, 16, 3313–3334, 2023.

Frömming, C., Matthes, S., Dietmüller, S., Peter, P., Grewe, V., Dahlmann, K., Jöckel., P., Geographical extension and refinement of Climate Change Functions: AIRTRAC.Vxy (included in EMAC-MESSy d2.52), GMD, in prep.

How to cite: Frömming, C., Matthes, S., Dietmüller, S., Peter, P., Grewe, V., Dahlmann, K., and Jöckel, P.: Update of Climate Change Functions and comparison with algorithmic Climate Change Functions, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-17462, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-17462, 2024.

X5.99
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EGU24-14735
Simone Dietmüller, Sigrun Matthes, Christine Frömming, Patrick Peter, and Katrin Dahlmann

Planning climate-optimized aircraft trajectories requires temporally and spatially resolved quantitative estimates of the climate effects of aviation emissions. Algorithmic climate change functions (aCCFs) are applied, which efficiently assesses the climate effects of CO2 and individual non-CO2 effects (i.e. nitrogen oxide (NOx) induced ozone, methane and PMO, water vapour, and contrail-cirrus) using meteorological input data at the time and location of the emission. A consistent set of initial prototype aCCFs (aCCF-V1.0) has recently been made available (Yin et al., 2023), and an updated formulation of this aCCFs calibrated towards the climate response model AirClim has been developed (aCCF-V1.0A, Matthes et al., 2023).

Utilizing the recently published open source Python Library CLIMaCCF (Dietmüller et al., 2023), we calculate aCCFs for individual and merged non-CO2 climate effects for a variety of different summer and winter weather patterns over the North Atlantic flight corridor as well as over the European airspace. The calculations are based on meteorological data from the ERA5 reanalysis dataset. Through a detailed analysis of these aCCFs, we identify meteorological conditions with large non-CO2 climate effects and demonstrate the influence of these identified weather patterns on the mitigation potential.

We use ensemble members to systematically characterize the uncertainties arising from the limited predictability of weather forecasts for the weather patterns identified above. This allows to access the robustness of the climate effect estimates (and their mitigation potential). Moreover, we investigate the sensitivity of using different physical climate metrics and efficacy parameters and thus provide further insight to uncertainties linked to climate science.

We further investigate the dependence of aCCF patterns to differently resolved meteorological input data (temporal, spatial, and vertical variation). Based on this analysis, we provide recommendations regarding the level of complexity for such an advanced MET service. Additionally, sensitivity studies using meteorological data from different data products (i.e. archived historical forecast) are shown.

Acknowledgement: The current study has been supported by the following projects: CICONIA, which has received funding from the European Union under grant agreement no. 101114613, CONCERTO, which has received funding from the European Union under grant agreement no. 101114785 and the BMWK LuFo project D-KULT 20M2111A.

 

How to cite: Dietmüller, S., Matthes, S., Frömming, C., Peter, P., and Dahlmann, K.: Investigating periods and regions with large mitigation potential using algorithmic climate change functions , EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-14735, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-14735, 2024.

X5.100
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EGU24-16759
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ECS
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Highlight
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Federica Castino, Feijia Yin, Volker Grewe, and Hiroshi Yamashita

The climate impact of a flight is determined not only by the amount of aircraft emissions, but also by the time, location, and specific weather conditions at which such emissions occur. As a result, there is the potential of mitigating the climate impact of a flight by optimizing its trajectory. This operational strategy presents trade-offs between minimizing the climate impact from carbon dioxide (CO2), which only depends on the amount of emitted CO2, and minimizing the so-called non-CO2 effects of aviation, due to the radiative forcing from contrails and contrail cirrus, the perturbation of atmospheric concentrations of ozone and methane caused by NOx emissions, and H2O emissions at high flight levels. Moreover, operating costs and climate impact are expected to be conflicting objectives for trajectory optimization (Grewe et al., 2014). The characteristics of the sets of Pareto optimal solutions resulting from such multi-objective optimizations would, however, vary under different atmospheric conditions.

To compare the benefits and costs associated to this operational strategy under different weather patterns, we use the air traffic simulator AirTraf, which optimizes aircraft trajectories based on the atmospheric fields computed by the ECHAM/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) model (Yamashita et al., 2020). This modelling chain presents the advantage of enabling the analysis of optimized aircraft trajectories over a large number of consecutive days, identifying preferred compromise solutions between multiple optimization objectives (Castino et al., 2023). In the present study, we consider four winter and four summer seasons between 2015 and 2019, optimizing 100 flights over the North Atlantic Corridor (NAC) on each simulation day. Subsequently, we compare trajectories minimizing different objective functions, including fuel used, and the potential formation of contrails along the trajectory. We classify the weather patterns by comparing their similarity to the positive and negative phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and East Atlantic (EA) patterns, applying the methodology  presented by Irvine et al. (2013). As a result, we can identify which conditions are correlated to a larger potential of mitigating the climate impact of our air traffic sample, e.g., by reducing the formation of persistent contrails.

Acknowledgment: This research has received funding from the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Actions programme under Grant Agreement No 101056885.

References:

  • Irvine, E. A., et al.: Characterizing North Atlantic weather patterns for climate-optimal aircraft routing, Meteorological Applications, 20, 80 – 93, https://doi.org/10.1002/met.1291, 2013.
  • Grewe, V., et al.: Reduction of the air traffic's contribution to climate change: A REACT4C case study, Atmospheric Environment, 94, 616 – 625, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2014.05.059, 2014.
  • Yamashita, H., et al.: Newly developed aircraft routing options for air traffic simulation in the chemistry–climate model EMAC 2.53: AirTraf 2.0, Geoscientific Model Development, 13, 4869 – 4890, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4869-2020, 2020.
  • Castino, F., et al.: Decision-making strategies implemented in SolFinder 1.0 to identify eco-efficient aircraft trajectories: application study in AirTraf 3.0, Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2023-88, in review, 2023.

How to cite: Castino, F., Yin, F., Grewe, V., and Yamashita, H.: Mitigation potential of optimized aircraft trajectories and its dependency on weather patterns, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-16759, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-16759, 2024.

X5.101
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EGU24-16260
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ECS
Sajedeh Marjani and Johannes Quaas

Aviation outflow is the only anthropogenic source of pollution that is directly emitted into the upper troposphere and potentially alters cloud patterns by creating linear contrails. These contrail cirrus formations can either increase high-cloud cover in supersaturated, cloud-free air or modify the microphysics of existing natural cirrus clouds. Despite the likelihood of aircraft intersecting natural cirrus, the extent of their impact remains uncertain.

Our study interests using the ICON_NWP model, integrated with a two-moment cloud microphysical scheme, to simulate contrail formation and dynamics. Central to this research is examining how aviation aerosols and emitted water vapor influence contrail development within already existing cirrus clouds.

The number of surviving nucleated ice crystals after the jet phase depends on engine and fuel parameters as well as on the ambient atmosphere (Kärcher et al 2015) and displays large regional variation (Bier & Burkhardt, 2019).  Bier and Burkhardt (2022) demonstrated that the concentration of ice crystals after the jet phase varies, ranging in terms of ice particle concentrations from 160 to 200 cm-3 over the North Pacific.

We assume a suggestive fixed-wing span of 50 meters, typical of aircrafts such as Airbus 300 and Boeing 737, correlating to a water vapor emission rate of 10 g per meter of flight. In our simulations, contrail formation is initiated at 450 seconds, marking the end of the vortex phase. Beyond this point, the remaining ice crystals are predominantly influenced by atmospheric conditions. Within each grid box, our initial step involves assessing the critical contrail temperature according to the Schmidt-Appleman criterion. Depending on whether these criteria are met, we then proceed to either introduce ice crystals or add the corresponding amount of water vapor.

Ultimately, we compare our simulation results with corresponding aircraft data, utilizing the DARDAR-NICE dataset that offers height-resolved measurements within cirrus clouds, to validate the imprints of aircraft emissions.

How to cite: Marjani, S. and Quaas, J.: Exploring the Interaction between Aircraft Emissions and Cirrus Clouds: Through Simulation Techniques and Satellite retrievals, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-16260, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-16260, 2024.

X5.102
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EGU24-18806
Sigrun Matthes, Nicolas Bellouin, Irene Dedoussi, Jan Fuglestvedt, Klaus Gierens, Didier Hauglustaine, Zamin Kanji, Martina Krämer, David Lee, Ulrike Lohmann, Andreas Petzold, Johannes Quaas, Mattia Righi, and Bernadett Weinzierl

Non-CO2 emissions contribute to climate effects from aviation in the same order of magnitude as carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, the non-CO2 effects, comprising e.g., ozone and methane induced from NOx emissions, together with contrails, or the indirect aerosol effects, are associated with much larger uncertainties. The EU Aeronautics project ACACIA (Advancing the SCience for Aviation and ClimAte) explored the climate impacts of non-CO2 effects which show a strong dependence on atmospheric conditions and synoptic situation. While CO2 and non-CO2 effects in general introduce a warming effect for climate change, some indirect effects might result in a relatively large cooling.

ACACIA investigated indirect aerosol effects comprising formation and properties of clouds. Atmospheric conditions for the formation of long-lived contrails have been investigated, with the aim to improve their predictability. Indirect effects of nitrogen oxide emissions on atmospheric ozone and methane have been estimated, using a set of global chemistry-climate models. These different effects have been brought to a common scale by various physical climate metrics. A dedicated study on prevailing uncertainties has been performed, with the goal to provide robust recommendations considering uncertainties of individual estimates. Together with the numerical studies a dedicated analysis of existing measurement data has been completed in order to identify needs and requirements for atmospheric observations.

To this end, ACACIA brought together research across scales, from plume to global scale, from laboratory experiments to global models resulting in a series of scientific publications, and it proceeds from fundamental physics and chemistry to the provision of recommendations for policy, regulatory bodies, and other stakeholders in the aviation business. 

Acknowledgements This project ACACIA (Advancing the scienCe for Aviation and ClImAte) receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 875036. High performance supercomputing resources were used from the German DKRZ Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum Hamburg.

How to cite: Matthes, S., Bellouin, N., Dedoussi, I., Fuglestvedt, J., Gierens, K., Hauglustaine, D., Kanji, Z., Krämer, M., Lee, D., Lohmann, U., Petzold, A., Quaas, J., Righi, M., and Weinzierl, B.: Advancing understanding on aviation's non-CO2 climate effects through combination of numerical modelling and observations: ACACIA, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-18806, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18806, 2024.

X5.103
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EGU24-19971
Katrin Dahlmann, Sigrun Matthes, Anna-Leah Nickl, Patrick Peter, Mariano Mertens, Helmut Ziereis, Theresa Harlaß, and Andreas Zahn

Anthropogenic transport sectors are concerned by their climate effects which results from CO2 and non-CO2 effects, comprising NOx-induced changes of atmospheric ozone and methane. Here climate-chemistry models are required to advance our understanding on induced changes of reactive species and the associated radiative forcing associated to aviation emissions. Evaluation of such comprehensive models is key in order to be able to investigate associated uncertainties can use observational datasets from research infrastructures like IAGOS and DLR aircraft measurement campaign data, as well as ground-based observations.

We use the MECO(n) system which is a “MESSy-fied ECHAM and COSMO nested n-times”, relying on the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) framework. For this purpose, both models have been equipped with the MESSy infrastructure, implying that the same process formulations (MESSy submodels) are available for both models. Modelled atmospheric distributions from the multi-scale model system MECO(n) are systematically compared to observational data from aircraft measurements in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Nudging of meteorology to reanalysis data, and special diagnostics available within the modular MESSy infrastructure are implemented in the numerical simulations. Online sampling along aircraft trajectories allows to extract model data with a high temporal resolution (MESSy submodel S4D), in order to evaluate model representation and key processes. Beyond systematic evaluation with IAGOS scheduled aircraft measurements, particular focus on those episodes where dedicated measurements from aircraft campaigns are available.

We present an analysis of reactive species, NOy and ozone, which also identifies those weather pattern and synoptic situations where transport sectors, comprising aviation contributes strong signals. We evaluate model representation of the NOx-induces effect on radiatively active species ozone and methane via the hydroxyl radical in both model instances, ECHAM5 and COSMO. This is key for advancing the scientific understanding of NOx-induced effects from transport effects required in order to quantify potential compensation and trade-offs and eventually in order to identify robust mitigation options for sustainable anthropogenic transport sectors.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 875036 (ACACIA, Advancing the Science for Aviation and Climate). This work uses measurement data from the European Research Infrastructure CARIBIC/IAGOS. High-Performance Super Computing simulations have been performed by the Deutsches Klima-Rechenzentrum (DKRZ, Hamburg) and the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum (LRZ, München).

How to cite: Dahlmann, K., Matthes, S., Nickl, A.-L., Peter, P., Mertens, M., Ziereis, H., Harlaß, T., and Zahn, A.: Transport-induced changes of atmospheric composition in the UTLS in the multi-scale Earth system model MECO(1), EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-19971, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-19971, 2024.

X5.104
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EGU24-21987
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ECS
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Irene Ortiz, Manuel Soler, Javier García-Heras, Hugues Brenot, Nicolas Clerbaux, and Pierre de Buyl

Under particular atmospheric conditions, aircraft water vapor emissions can evolve into enduring formations, known as contrails, wherein they entrap the long-wave infrared radiation emitted by the Earth's surface modifying, consequently, the temperature structure within the lower atmosphere. This phenomenon, linked to global warming, underscores the need for studying contrail environmental impacts. Achieving this requires accurate methods to identify formation patterns and monitor size, splitting, and evolutionary dynamics of these features. The present study introduces a novel approach for achieving contrail detection in Multispectral Satellite Imagery based on linear structure considerations and temporal dynamic analysis. The assessment of experimental results relies on images acquired over Europe at specific instances when contrails were visible, leveraging the high temporal resolution provided by the geostationary satellite Meteosat Third Generation.

How to cite: Ortiz, I., Soler, M., García-Heras, J., Brenot, H., Clerbaux, N., and de Buyl, P.: Advancing Contrail Detection Methods over European Skies, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-21987, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-21987, 2024.

X5.105
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EGU24-9776
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ECS
Mathieu Muller, Etienne Terrenoire, Younes Bouhafid, and Nicolas Bonne

Over the last decades, the increasing globalisation and the associated need for substantially shortened travel times has led to public and privately-funded development of supersonic aircraft. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) needs to define standards for the advent of this new generation of supersonic aviation. The SENECA project (“noiSe and EmissioNs of supErsoniC Aircraft”) aims at developing supersonic aircrafts, investigating the impact of specifical supersonic engine technologies on the aircraft performance and noise, providing aircraft fuel burn, emitted CO2 data and engine emission indices for NOx, CO, HC, SOx and soot and quantifying a range of climate impacts of supersonic aviation.

In the context of this project, the ONERA objectives are to model and characterize the contrails due to supersonic aircraft during cruise and to provide data to climatologists to calculate their global impact.

In this study, a focus is made on the vortex phase of the contrail aging modelled with the CEDRE software from ONERA. The vortex phase strongly depends on both the aircraft geometry and the atmospheric conditions. So, first RANS simulations using mesh adaptation were performed to obtain an aerodynamical field used to initialize the vortex phase [1]. 

From the RANS field, a slice far from the aircraft is extracted, extruded and interpolated on a 3D mesh whose longitudinal dimension corresponds to the Crow wave length. Jet and atmospheric fluctuations are added to trigger the Crow instability, and the stratification of the atmosphere is also modelled corresponding to the lower stratosphere where the aircraft is flying in cruise regime. After those steps, a LES simulation is performed to simulate the contrail aging.

 

[1] M. Muller and E. Terrenoire, Near-field mesh adaptation for contrail modeling of a supersonic aircraft, 3AF International Conference on Applied Aerodynamics, 29-31 March 2023, Bordeaux, France

How to cite: Muller, M., Terrenoire, E., Bouhafid, Y., and Bonne, N.: Contrail aging simulation of a supersonic aircraft, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-9776, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-9776, 2024.

X5.106
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EGU24-12227
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ECS
Marlene V. Euchenhofer, Ian Ross, Sebastian D. Eastham, Vincent Meijer, and Ian A. Waitz

Despite large uncertainties, persistent contrails are estimated to be responsible for more than half of the additional climate forcing attributed to aviation (Lee et al., 2021). Persistent contrails form only under ice-supersaturated conditions, present in vertically thin regions (Gierens et al., 2020), resulting in a potential to reduce the formation of aircraft-induced cirrus clouds by making altitude deviations of approximately 1km (Sausen et al., 2023). This requires knowledge of the location of the regions to be avoided.

Currently, research groups are using images from geostationary (GEO) satellites to observe and detect persistent contrails and to use these detections to estimate regions of persistent contrail formation (Meijer et al., 2022; Ng et al., 2021; Vazquez-Navarro et al., 2010). Observations from GEO satellites provide frequently updated images (every five minutes for GOES-16 ABI), enabling “nowcasting” of contrail forming regions (McCloskey et al., 2021).

We have conducted a preliminary assessment, which shows that data from GEO satellites does not resolve many contrails visible on images from satellites in the low-Earth orbit (LEO). This was particularly observed under conditions of high background cloudiness and shows a noticeable underestimation of the extent of regions of persistent contrail formation. Since LEO satellites orbit closer to the Earth’s surface (typically at an altitude around 800 km) compared to GEO satellites (35,786 km), instruments onboard LEO satellites often have a higher spatial resolution. However, most LEO satellites overfly most points on Earth only every 12 hours. We therefore find that, while high-resolution LEO images provide the potential for improved contrail detection at certain points in time, due to their more limited temporal resolution, they can only serve as an additional layer of information rather than as a sole source for contrail detection.

Here we present a dataset of collocated observations from a variety of sources, including GEO and LEO infrared radiometers, LEO lidar, data from numerical weather prediction models, and contrail height estimates from correlations of satellite observations with flight data. With this data, we are building our “ground truth library” of contrail observations, which allowed us to systematically investigate the influence of different cloud and atmospheric parameters on contrail detection.

Since attributing observed contrails to individual flights still is a highly manual process, we further investigated which instrument channels allow for the best human identification of contrails under different conditions. Considering weather data as an additional layer of information, especially when cloudiness impacts the visibility for all sources of visual data, allows us to assess the likelihood of contrail persistence in these regions and to identify the correlated uncertainty bounds for this process. Our investigation yields a multifaceted assessment of contrail detectability and the potential of different data sources to improve the identification of regions that allow for contrail persistence. 

How to cite: Euchenhofer, M. V., Ross, I., Eastham, S. D., Meijer, V., and Waitz, I. A.: A comparison of contrail detectability from LEO and GEO satellite images, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-12227, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-12227, 2024.

X5.107
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EGU24-2393
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ECS
|
China Hagström, Sebastian Eastham, Ian Waitz, and Steven Barrett

Contrails are currently estimated to be one of the largest contributors to aviation climate forcing, with a cumulative effect roughly equivalent to that of the CO2 emitted by aviation.[3] Contrail properties are impacted by chemical and thermodynamic conditions in the exhaust and the meteorological environment. Currently, the state of meteorological and emissions data contains significant uncertainty.[4][2] As such, resulting contrail predictions and impact models are uncertain.

This uncertainty is a detriment to aviation impacts reduction analysis. Meteorological data such as relative humidity (RH) is a key determining factor for the lifetime and subsequent radiative forcing (RF) of the contrail. Mitigation strategies necessitate consistent predictions of when and where contrails are formed, which contrails persist, and their respective RF effects.[2] Identifying model parameter sensitivities to formation and meteorological condition uncertainty will improve the effectiveness of policies designed to reduce contrail climate impacts.

To address this problem we examine two existing models: the Aircraft Plume Chemistry, Emissions, and Microphysics Model (APCEMM), and the Contrail Cirrus Prediction Model (CoCiP).[1][5] Both model the chemical and physical evolution of an aircraft plume, using differing methods. Comparison of the models and their outcomes under different conditions will contribute to the characterization of current contrail models and identification of areas most sensitive to input parameters. Inputs of interest are soot concentration, sulfur concentration, and the RH field.

Uncertainty quantification (UQ) for the existing models is limited, and largely relies on Monte-Carlo analysis. Computationally expensive models such as APCEMM cannot be appropriately characterized by this type of analysis. A non-intrusive Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE) method is implemented to better characterize the relationship between uncertain inputs and resulting impacts predicted by APCEMM and CoCiP. This technique is commonly used for UQ of results obtained from expensive computational models. PCE is a data-driven regression-based technique that relies on spectral polynomials as basis-functions. Outputs of few (expensive) numerical simulations estimate the PCE coefficients within a regression framework combined with regularization techniques. The resulting surrogate efficiently predicts outcomes given novel inputs, circumventing the use of the expensive model to produce analysis.

In this work we introduce a new method of UQ for contrail impacts, applied to two existing contrail impact models. The resulting surrogates explore the impact of uncertainty in soot and sulfur concentrations as well as RH field. Our goal in this work is to establish quantitative relationships between input parameter uncertainty and climate impacts, identifying output sensitivity to input perturbations. We present a set of tests on the 5 most travelled flight paths for the 5 most common aircraft, including spatially dependent and independent uncertain variables.

[1]Thibaud Fritz et. al. The role of plume-scale processes in long-term impacts of aircraft emissions. 10.5194/acp-20-5697-2020

[2]Klaus Gierens et al. How Well Can Persistent Contrails Be Predicted? 10.3390/aerospace7120169

[3]D. Lee et al. The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2020.117834

[4]Vincent Meijer et al. Contrail coverage over the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. 10.1088/1748-9326/ac26f0

[5]Ulrich Schumann. A contrail cirrus prediction model. 10.5194/gmd-5-543-2012

How to cite: Hagström, C., Eastham, S., Waitz, I., and Barrett, S.: Uncertainty Quantification of Contrail Climate Impacts using Non-Intrusive Polynomial Chaos, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-2393, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-2393, 2024.

X5.108
|
EGU24-14802
|
ECS
Nicolas Gourgue, Olivier Boucher, and Laurent Barthes

The climate impact of aviation can be separated into CO2 and non-CO2 effects, with the latter being potentially larger than the former. In this
context we are more specifically interested in condensation trails (hereafter contrails) and induced cirrus. Monitoring contrail formation and evolution is
necessary to understand their radiative effects and help the aviation industry to transition towards a more sustainable activity. Current research aimed at
detecting contrails is mostly based on geostationary satellite images because they allow to follow the contrail over a long period of time. However a major
shortcoming is that the formation phase of the contrails cannot be detected and larger, but older, contrails cannot always be attributed to the flights
that produced them. To circumvent the problem that satellite images do not have a sufficient resolution to observe the contrail formation phase, we
use a ground-based hemispheric camera with a two-minute sampling rate as a complementary source of information. As a first step, we have developed
a traditional morphological algorithm that will help preparing a sufficiently large labelled database as required to train a deep-learning algorithm. Our
algorithm aims to detect whether each aircraft that passes in the field of view of the camera (as monitored from an ADSB radar) produces a contrail or not. We are thus able to relate contrail formation and evolution with aircraft
type, flight altitude and weather conditions. We start by focusing on the young linear contrails that appears just behind the aircraft. We also consider
all weather conditions except completely cloudy conditions that prevents contrails to be observed. The algorithm combines various morphological
treatments to binarise the image and a linear Hough transform to identify straight lines in a direction close to the aircraft’s trajectory. Its performance is evaluated against a database that was manually annotated consisting of 400 images with 407 contrails. We find that our algorithm has a specificity
of 97%, i.e. there are few false detections, but its sensitivity is about 55%, i.e. it is missing a significant fraction of contrail appearances. Looking in
more details, the sensitivity is 60% in clear-sky contidions but only 40% in conditions of a thin high cloud cover with superimposed contrails. An
analysis of several years of contrail detection will be presented to determine precisely the fraction of contrail-producing flights and the associated weather
conditions with non-persistent and persistent contrails.

How to cite: Gourgue, N., Boucher, O., and Barthes, L.: A Morphological Algorithm for the Detection of Linear Contrails, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-14802, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-14802, 2024.

X5.109
|
EGU24-12820
|
ECS
|
Pierre Saulgeot, Vincent Brion, Nicolas Bonne, Emmanuel Dormy, and Laurent Jacquin

A recent study (Lee et al., 2021) has shown that contrails are the main contributor to aviation-related radiative forcing. However, the same study shows that this contribution is highly imprecise due to numerous uncertainties. Among the most important are the numerous contingencies regarding the vertical and horizontal extent of ice plumes, as well as their altitude, which may differ from the flight level of the emitting aircraft, rising to hundreds of meters. This uncertainty is largely due to its interaction with the aircraft’s dynamic wake, which, very soon after the aircraft’s passage, is reduced to two counter-rotating vortices known as wingtip vortices.

These two vortices descend by induction into the atmosphere, driving the plumes to lower altitudes. However, these dynamics are influenced by atmospheric stratification, as shown in Spalart (1996). In most cases, the two wake vortices continue their descent, but certain dynamic structures are created in their vicinity by the baroclinic torque due to buoyancy, and rise to flight altitude. The wake then splits into two parts: one descending into the atmosphere and the other rising back up to, or slightly above, flight altitude. A long, rising column of fluid joins the two wakes. The plume initially trapped around the two vortices can then evolve in three different ways. Either the plume remains with the vortices well below the flight altitude, or it rises to this altitude or even higher, entrained in the secondary wake, or it is distributed between the two wakes and the column uniting them, as shown by Saulgeot et al. (2023).

Among the parameters influencing these dynamics is the relationship between atmospheric stratification, quantified by the Brunt-Väisälä frequency N, and the characteristic time τ0 of the vortex dipole

                                                                   τ0 = b0/ W0

where the natural motion of the vortices is a descent at constant speed W0 caused by mutual induction. This is the reference time scale, and the initial vortex separation b0 is the reference distance. In this scale framework, the effective stratification of the vortex flow is measured by the inverse of the Froude number

                                                                    Fr1 = Nτ0.                                                                  

The intermediate vorticity column plays a fundamental role in the upwelling of the plume: it is the only link between the primary and secondary wakes and can therefore influence both the latter and the plume. At the end of the two-dimensional phase of wake evolution, before the onset of the Crow instability, this column can destabilize, isolating the two parts of the wake and preventing the plume from rising. This can be thought of as thermal plume jet instabilities. These are of two types: sinusoidal and varicose. In most cases, the two instabilities follow one another (see figure 1): the varicose instability appears first, then the sinusoidal instability takes over due to a higher growth rate. Nevertheless, the appearance of one or the other can be observed independently.

Figure 1: Vorticity field for Fr1 =0.6. (a) t =7.3τ0; (b) t =7.4τ0; (c) t =7.5τ0; (d) t =7.6τ0; (e) t =7.7τ0; (f) t =7.8τ0; (g) t =7.9τ0.

How to cite: Saulgeot, P., Brion, V., Bonne, N., Dormy, E., and Jacquin, L.: Two-dimensional stability of a wake vortex dipole in a stratified atmosphere., EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-12820, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-12820, 2024.

X5.110
|
EGU24-10277
|
ECS
Tiziana Bräuer, Raphael Märkl, Monika Scheibe, Daniel Sauer, Rebecca Dischl, Christopher Heckl, Heinfried Aufmhoff, Luca Stremming, Christiane Voigt, Joshua Digangi, Glenn Diskin, Steven Baughcum, William Griffin, Tim Rahmes, Cassandra Miller, and Richard Moore

Analyzing the formation of contrails on emissions from the most recent generation of aircraft engines is key to understand the climate impact from aviation. As for conventional Rich-Quench-Lean engines contrail ice crystals mainly form on a high number of emitted soot particles, the question arises which and how many particles are activated during the contrail formation process if soot emissions are strongly reduced through the Lean Combustion technology.

The ecoDemonstrator experiment is a collaboration between Boeing, GE, NASA, DLR and other international partners and took place in October 2023. For the first time, we present in-flight measurements of contrail ice crystals in the exhaust of the ultra-low soot emitting CFM International LEAP-1B engine. This experiment combines the lean-burning engine technology with the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) and ultra-low sulfur kerosene (LS-Jet-A) in newly manufactured engines to achieve close to soot-free emissions. During the experiment, we performed measurements on board the NASA DC-8 research aircraft, sampling emissions behind a Boeing 737 MAX 10 aircraft. In addition to gas and particle emissions, we also measured the number concentrations of ice crystals that formed behind the 737 MAX 10 at a distance between 3 and 8 kilometers with two Cloud and Aerosol Spectrometers (CAS) that were positioned on the upper and lower fuselage of the DC-8. We show a first analysis of the contrail ice data for selected flights and present apparent ice emission indices (AEI) in relation to ambient conditions.

How to cite: Bräuer, T., Märkl, R., Scheibe, M., Sauer, D., Dischl, R., Heckl, C., Aufmhoff, H., Stremming, L., Voigt, C., Digangi, J., Diskin, G., Baughcum, S., Griffin, W., Rahmes, T., Miller, C., and Moore, R.: In-flight Measurements of Contrails in the Low Soot Regime during the ecoDemonstrator Experiment , EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-10277, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10277, 2024.

X5.111
|
EGU24-19754
Anke Roiger, Theresa Harlass, Tiziana Braeuer, Hans Schlager, Ulrich Schumann, Daniel Sauer, Christiane Voigt, Andreas Doernbrack, Raphael Maerkl, Rebecca Dischl, Tobias Schripp, Linda Bondorf, Tobias Grein, Maxime Gauthier, Charles Renard, Darren Luff, Mark Johnson, Paul Madden, Peter Swann, and Reetu Sallinen

Nitrogen oxides, emitted from air traffic, are of concern due to their impact on climate by changing atmospheric ozone and methane levels. Using the DLR research aircraft Falcon, total reactive nitrogen (NOy) measurements were carried out at high altitudes to characterize emissions in the fresh aircraft exhaust from the latest generation Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-84 engine aboard the long-range Airbus A350-941 aircraft. The impact of different engine thrust settings, monitored in terms of combustor inlet temperature, pressure, and engine fuel flow, was tested for three different fuel types under similar atmospheric conditions: Jet A-1, for the first time a 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and a blend of both fuels. In addition, a range of combustor temperatures were tested during ground emission measurements. We confirm that the NOx emission index increases with increasing combustion temperature, pressure and fuel flow. We find that as expected, the fuel type has no measurable effect on the NOx emission index. These measurements are used to evaluate cruise NOx emission index estimates from three engine emission models. Our measurements thus help to evaluate the ground to cruise correlation of current engine models, serve as input for climate modelling, and extend the extremely sparse data set on in-flight aircraft NOx emissions to newer engine generations.

How to cite: Roiger, A., Harlass, T., Braeuer, T., Schlager, H., Schumann, U., Sauer, D., Voigt, C., Doernbrack, A., Maerkl, R., Dischl, R., Schripp, T., Bondorf, L., Grein, T., Gauthier, M., Renard, C., Luff, D., Johnson, M., Madden, P., Swann, P., and Sallinen, R.: In-flight and ground-based measurements of nitrogen oxide emissions from latest generation jet engines and 100% sustainable aviation fuel, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-19754, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-19754, 2024.

X5.112
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EGU24-19989
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ECS
Nicolas Février, Didier Hauglustaine, and Nicolas Bellouin

The radiative forcing of aviation aerosol-cloud interactions remains very uncertain. Its quantification relies on climate models. One of the main drivers of aerosol concentrations and long-range vertical and horizontal transport in climate models is wet scavenging, which can be parameterised in different ways with several tunable parameters. In this work, we use the LMDZ-OR-INCA climate to investigate the impact of different scavenging parameterisations on aerosol transport, using regional and seasonal vertical profiles obtained from ATom and HIPPO airborne measurements to discriminate between parameterisations. Results show that the residence time and the mass budgets of BC from all sources are both significantly influenced by the scavenging parameterisation. Moreover, the ability of a BC scavenging parameterisation to simulate vertical aerosol concentration profiles depends on geographical location, altitude and season. Near-surface aerosol concentrations, mainly due to Landing and Take-off Operations (LTO), are also affected by the choice of a wet scavenging parameterisation. Results suggest it may be possible to design a new scavenging routine for LMDZ-OR-INCA model to better represent the long-range transport of aviation aerosols and reduce uncertainties in aviation aerosol-cloud interaction radiative forcing.

How to cite: Février, N., Hauglustaine, D., and Bellouin, N.: Improving aviation aerosol scavenging representation in LMDZ-OR-INCA model, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-19989, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-19989, 2024.

Poster surface based transport
X5.113
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EGU24-7334
Daeun Chae, Jiseon Kim, Jung-Woo Yoo, and Soon-Hwan Lee

Due to rapid urbanization and population growth, high aerosol pollution in the Korean Peninsula has become a major environmental concern. High concentrations of PM2.5 in atmosphere is not only highly hazardous to humans, but also contributes significantly to visibility degradation and climate change. In study, K-means clustering analysis was performed to classify major synoptic patterns on the Korean Peninsula during the seasonal PM2.5 management from 2015 to 2019. Also, we analyzed synoptic patterns according to the air quality on each cluster by dividing the PM2.5 pollution standard into four levels to identify the differences in the occurrence of PM2.5 concentrations in the similar meteorological environment. As a result, the synoptic patterns were classified into five clusters (C1~C5). The clusters (C1, C3, C4) with pressure gradient from east to west showed differences of PM2.5 concentrations in Seoul as the pressure gradient between east and west changed. The clusters (C2, C5) with pressure gradients from south to north had different PM2.5 concentrations in Seoul depending on the location and intensity of high pressure located in southeast of the Korean Peninsula and the intensity and location of high- and low-pressure systems located in the North Pacific and Kamchatka Peninsula, respectively. This study confirmed that air quality can vary depending on the location and strength of high- and low-pressure systems in the similar synoptic meteorological environment.

How to cite: Chae, D., Kim, J., Yoo, J.-W., and Lee, S.-H.: A study of differences in PM2.5 concentrations at similar synoptic meteorological fields during the seasonal PM2.5 management from 2015 to 2019, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-7334, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-7334, 2024.

X5.114
|
EGU24-10092
James Lee, Dominika Pasternak, Shona Wilde, and Stuart Lacy

The shipping industry is a significant source of both SO2 and NOx, two air pollutants which have neg-active implications for climate and air quality. SO2 is heavily regulated such that January 2020 marked a global reduction of the maximum permitted sulfur fuel content (SFC) in shipping fuel from 3.5% to 0.5% by mass. There are also various limits on NOx in coastal and inland waterways with more widespread NOx emissions limits likely to be implemented in the future. The anticipated effect of the new regulations is an improvement of coastal air quality, but there is a potential drawback in terms of reducing the climate cooling effect of SO2 caused by a change in cloud properties. However, the difficulty in measuring emissions from ships means that the overall impact and level of compliance with new and future regulations is unclear. Therefore, monitoring strategies capable of providing regular and long-term measurements of air pollutant emissions from the shipping industry are essential for fundamental research and compliance monitoring. Here we present top-down methodologies for calculating the SFC, along with emission ratios of ∆NOx/∆CO2 from individual ships. First, we demonstrate the application of an airborne platform to perform targeted measurements of ship plumes in the English Channel and Atlantic shipping lanes, allowing the comparison of emissions inside and out of sulfur emission control areas (SECAs). Second, we implement a stationary, point-sampling approach to measure ships arriving and departing two European ports.

Our results show there has been a significant reduction in the SFC of ships in the open ocean shipping lanes due to the new emission regulations, with most ships now well below the 0.5% limit imposed in 2020. Our measurements also show good agreement with a comprehensive ship specific emissions inventory (the Ship Traffic Emission Assessment Model – STEAM). This confirms the validity of models that use the new sulfur limit for radiative forcing calculations. In terms of NOx, the measured ∆NOx/∆CO2 ratios were generally greater than those from diesel vehicles operating within a typical European fleet, suggesting ships could be a significant source of NOx to cities, especially where ports are close to populated areas. It is envisaged that the presented methodologies could be implemented to facilitate widespread monitoring of ship emissions, which could provide the basis for policy formulation and validation.

How to cite: Lee, J., Pasternak, D., Wilde, S., and Lacy, S.: SO2 and NOx emissions from European shipping: a measurement study, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-10092, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10092, 2024.

X5.115
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EGU24-6075
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ECS
Carys Williams, Dr Will Drysdale, Dr Samuel Cliff, Dr Sarah Moller, and Prof James Lee

As air quality targets become more stringent, a better understanding of urban air pollution sources continues to be important for the development of targeted and effective policy.  Ambient measurements of the enhancement of NOx and CO2 concentrations above background can be linked to direct emissions via the calculation of emission ratios (ΔNOx/ΔCO2), which in turn provide insight into emission sources. In this work, we use a regression analysis method to quantify emission ratios from high time resolution (1 second) roadside measurements of NOx and CO2 taken in two major UK cities, London and Manchester. Calculated emission ratios allow us to gain a greater understanding of the effect of factors such as fleet composition and vehicle operating conditions on NOx emissions, along the roads measured. Additionally, a comparison of emission ratios across the two cities allows for an interesting discussion on the differences in traffic behaviour and effectiveness of local traffic-related policy (e.g. low emission zones). Analysis of long-term measurements of NOx and CO2 at the Marylebone Road site demonstrate the effect of changes in vehicle technology and the effect of the ULEZ. This work also aims to highlight the benefit of long-term high time resolution measurements on a local level to develop an advanced understanding of local traffic-related NOx emission characteristics.

How to cite: Williams, C., Drysdale, D. W., Cliff, D. S., Moller, D. S., and Lee, P. J.: Use of high-time resolution roadside measurements to inform NOx emission ratios , EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-6075, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-6075, 2024.

X5.116
|
EGU24-671
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ECS
Nikos Gialesakis, Nikos Daskalakis, Friedemann Reum, Mihalis Vrekoussis, and Maria Kanakidou

The Eastern Mediterranean experiences a rapid acceleration of climate warming mainly due to the continuous growth of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a key contributor to the human-induced greenhouse effect due to its long lifetime and high atmospheric concentrations. With its levels continuing to rise, the need to mitigate its emissions is of utmost importance. Towards this direction, atmospheric models are used to assess the influence of emissions on atmospheric composition. Emission fields used in models, called bottom-up emission inventories, provide information on the amounts and the distribution of the emitted pollutants. However, these emissions are coupled with large uncertainties at small spatiotemporal scales. Therefore, optimization of these emission estimates is needed to increase accuracy and thus support the identification of targets for emission reduction. In this study, we are optimizing the anthropogenic emissions of CO2 over Greece by using the data assimilation system CTDAS-WRF (Carbon Tracker Data Assimilation Shell) that uses an Ensemble Kalman filter data assimilation method. As a forward model, we use WRF-CHEM with the GHG mechanism that allows passive tracer transport of CO2. The sum of emissions from all different anthropogenic sectors from the CAMS anthropogenic emission inventory (CAMS-GLOB-ANT 5.3) is used as input to the model, in addition to biogenic (VPRM) and biomass burning emissions (FINN 2.5). The simulations are then compared to in-situ, FTIR and satellite observations of CO2 that have been assimilated by CTDAS. The differences between the observations and the simulations are assumed to be only due to the uncertainty of the anthropogenic emissions. Therefore, our system is optimizing only these emissions. Preliminary results show the largest underestimates by the bottom-up inventories over the city of Athens.

How to cite: Gialesakis, N., Daskalakis, N., Reum, F., Vrekoussis, M., and Kanakidou, M.: Inversions of anthropogenic CO2 emissions using CTDAS-WRF over Greece in the East Mediterranean., EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-671, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-671, 2024.

X5.117
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EGU24-1644
Yuanjian Yang

The ventilation condition in the atmospheric boundary layer, which varies with the synoptic pattern, is a crucial factor affecting the transport and dispersion of air pollutants. In this study, taking Beijing as an example, local ozone (O3) accumulation and the transboundary O3 pollution (TOP) patterns during the warm season were explored under different boundary layer ventilation conditions by using integrated objective weather classification, non-negative matrix factorization, and backward trajectory model. Results show that local sources are a major contributor to O3 pollution in the whole of Beijing, accounting for ~73.36% of the O3 concentration on average. The local accumulation is mainly facilitated by poor ventilation conditions with weak wind speeds (<3 m/s) under favorable photochemical reaction conditions and abundant precursors, resulting in local O3 events. In contrast, the occurrence of synoptic patterns associated with TOP is more frequent, so the TOP contribution cannot be ignored, especially for the northern regions, where it may exceed 50%. Horizontal wind vector variations play a marked role in driving the TOP, affecting not only the location of the source region and transport pathway but also the transport distance and volume. In addition, a strong nocturnal low-level jet (LLJ) results in horizontal transport and a temporary rise in O3 concentration, while a daytime LLJ stimulates a peak in O3 concentration over the downwind area, lagging by about 1 hr. Our findings provide new perspectives on the effects of boundary layer ventilation on the regulation of O3 pollution, as well as other air pollutants.

How to cite: Yang, Y.: Elucidating the Impacts of Various Atmospheric Ventilation Conditions on Local and Transboundary Ozone Pollution Patterns: A Case Study of Beijing, China, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-1644, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-1644, 2024.

X5.118
|
EGU24-17795
Gerhard Lammel, Benjamin A. Musa Bandowe, Pernilla Bohlin-Nizzetto, Céline Degrendele, Anne Karine Halse, Minas Iakovides, Petr Kukučka, Marios Kyprianou, Jakub Martiník, John Mwangi, Barbora Palátová Nežiková, Petra Přibylová, Roman Prokeš, Milan Sáňka, Jaromir Sobotka, Jakub Vinkler, Marco Wietzoreck, Ulrich Pöschl, Euripides G. Stephanou, and Manolis Tsapakis and the PAC air-surface exchange

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the atmospheric environment are almost exclusively formed in combustion processes. Oxygenated and nitrated PAHs are co-emitted with parent PAHs from fossil fuel and biomass combustion processes, and many are formed in photochemical and microbiological reactions of PAHs in air and soil. As semivolatiles resisting biodegradation in soils and surface waters to some extent, polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) i.e., PAHs and their derivatives, can be subject to re-volatilisation., which may turn soils and surface waters from sinks into secondary sources and enhances the long-range transport potential of PACs by multihopping (grasshopper effect). The significance of these secondary sources for PAC abundances in ambient air is unknown and is not accounted for in emission inventories. Gaps in PAH emission inventories have been indicated by field studies in various countries.

We determined the concentrations of 15 parent, 10 oxygenated and 17 nitrated PAHs in air and soils at a rural and near-coastal northern European site and a central European rural background site, and in air and surface seawater at two off-shore sites in the eastern Mediterranean and along NW-SE transects in the Mediterranean. Directions of air-soil and air-sea exchanges were derived from the substances’ fugacities.

At the central European site, a number of 2-4 ring PACs were found to volatilise from grassland and more from forest soils in summer, and much less in winter. Conversely, at the receptor site in northern Europe, net deposition of PACs prevails and re-volatilisation occurs only sporadically. In the Mediterranean, 3-4 ring PAHs and dibenzofuran are found to volatilise in most seasons.

Existing data on air-surface exchange of PACs is notably scarce, and methodological uncertainties persist in quantifying air-soil exchange. As very little is known about the spatial and seasonal distributions of PACs soil burdens and net mass fluxes, an assessment of the significance of soils and surface waters as secondary sources of PACs in the air of source and receptor areas is not possible.

 

How to cite: Lammel, G., Bandowe, B. A. M., Bohlin-Nizzetto, P., Degrendele, C., Halse, A. K., Iakovides, M., Kukučka, P., Kyprianou, M., Martiník, J., Mwangi, J., Palátová Nežiková, B., Přibylová, P., Prokeš, R., Sáňka, M., Sobotka, J., Vinkler, J., Wietzoreck, M., Pöschl, U., Stephanou, E. G., and Tsapakis, M. and the PAC air-surface exchange: Soils and surface waters are secondary sources of polycyclic aromatic compounds, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-17795, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-17795, 2024.

Posters virtual: Wed, 17 Apr, 14:00–15:45 | vHall X5

Display time: Wed, 17 Apr 08:30–Wed, 17 Apr 18:00
Chairperson: Mariano Mertens
Poster virtual: Surface based transport
vX5.7
|
EGU24-16230
Suvarna Tikle, Idir Bouarar, Rajesh Kumar, and Guy Brasseur

Indore grapples with severe air quality challenges due to rapid urban development, posing significant public health risks. To investigate the source contributions, it is vitally important to distinguish the contribution of local emissions and regional emissions. This study employs the WRF-Chem model in tracer mode to discern the contributions of PM2.5 and CO emissions from diverse regions over Indore, India. We identify the different high-emission contributing local and transboundary 25 regions and sources of particulate matter and CO emissions in Indore using WRF-Chem model during 2019.  The model utilizes a two-domain configuration. Model simulations successfully capture the spatial distributions of key meteorological parameters over the domain when compared to various datasets such as IMERG, MOPITT, and ERA5.  Results reveal that CO anthropogenic sources, both local and transported across domain boundaries, significantly contribute to concentrations in Indore. While the general spatial distribution of simulated CO aligns with MOPITT, simulated values are comparatively lower due to the exclusion of secondary sources and biogenic emissions. PM2.5 in Indore itself is a main source of emissions with contributions exceeding 16% throughout the year, whereas biomass burning emerges as the primary source of PM2.5 during specific months, with a consistent contribution observed throughout the year within the Indore district boundary. From an effective mitigation strategy perspective, further, we have combined local emissions and CAMS emissions in the model for the quantification of various pollutants over the Indore region.  We estimated the various sectoral contributions from residential, industry, transport, DG sets, eateries, brick kilns, and crematoriums with high spatial resolution using Weather Research and Forecasting with a Chemistry model.

How to cite: Tikle, S., Bouarar, I., Kumar, R., and Brasseur, G.: Source attribution modeling of PM2.5 and CO in Indore, India, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-16230, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-16230, 2024.

vX5.8
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EGU24-19733
|
ECS
Sven Reiland, Franz Philipps, and Lukas Arens

Within the scope of the ZEDU1 (Zero Emission Drive Unit Generation 1) project, both a conventional electric vehicle as a reference model and a prototype of the Zero Emission Drive Unit were developed for measurement characterizations. Concurrently with the demonstrator development, examinations of cast iron and hard-coated brake discs were conducted under real operating conditions and on test benches. Special attention was paid to the influence of recuperation on the airborne particle emissions from the brakes. Advanced on-board measurement methods were developed and effectively utilized.

The results highlight that the brake temperature significantly influences particle generation in the range of 10 nm, while the braking process primarily produces particles between 200 nm and 300 nm. Impressively, the use of regenerative braking during real driving led to a reduction in abrasion emissions of up to nearly 90%. Furthermore, a reduction of up to 83% in airborne brake abrasions for particle sizes ranging from 300 nm to 10 µm was observed with hard-coated brake discs.

Moreover, a novel brake system without airborne abrasion emissions was developed and validated. A demonstrator vehicle, equipped with the newly developed ZEDU1 unit, was designed, measured, and assessed for its everyday usability. Comprehensive tests confirm the complete functionality and durability of the developed brake system, thus showcasing its practicality

How to cite: Reiland, S., Philipps, F., and Arens, L.: Brake and Tire Emission Analysis with the Zero-Emission-Drive-Unit-Demonstrator for Battery Electric Vehicles, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-19733, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-19733, 2024.