1,2,3,1,2- 1School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales (xz20153@bristol.ac.uk)
- 2School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales
- 3School of Physics, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales
A global three-dimensional Lagrangian chemistry-transport model (STOCHEM-CRI) is employed to describe the impact of space rocket exhaust NOx emissions on the global distributions of methane (CH4) and tropospheric ozone (O3), the second and third most man-made greenhouse gases after carbon dioxide (CO2). Tropospheric column NOx emissions have been injected above key active launch sites with One-At-A-Time (OAT) sensitivity experiments producing global warming potentials (GWP) for short- and long-term ozone as well as long term methane GWP contributions. A sensitivity to launch location and timing is observed, opening future work for potential mitigation strategies. Although current impacts of space rocket launch on global distributions of CH4 and O3 are small, future challenges exist with increasing launch cadence requiring further controlling of NOx emissions into the future to avoid further impacts on GWP.
How to cite: Walsh, A., Bullock, S., Shallcross, D., Hanna, S., Derwent, D., and Khan, A.: Rocket launch tropospheric NOx emission: Impact on ozone and methane concentrations and launch location sensitivity., EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19631, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19631, 2026.
