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The global commercial aircraft fleet in 2006 flew more than 31 million flights, burned nearly 190 million metric tons of fuel, and covered 38 billion kilometers. This activity emitted substantial amounts of fossil-fuel combustion products within the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere that affect atmospheric composition and climate. The emissi...
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... working definition by pilots is short-haul flights are those less than three hours in duration; long-haul flights are those lasting more than six hours; flights lasting between three and six hours are considered medium-haul flights. Aggregating the data by these rules provides the results in Table 6. Short-haul 10 flights indeed represent 85 percent of the total number of flights; this is illustrated in the length-duration plot in Fig. 3, which shows the percentage of flights for a given distance and duration bin. ...
Context 2
... are emissions occurring within the boundaries of each region without regard for origi- nation or destination of the air traffic. Despite covering less than 3 percent of the total surface area (including Alaska), 30 Table 6 only partially support this. Most regions contributed to this decrease; however, some, such as Japan, showed both an increase in emissions and a larger percentage emitted above 7 km in 2006, suggesting more over-flights from Asia. ...
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... The proportion between short-haul, medium-haul, and long-haul flights is taken into account afterward, knowing that Wilkerson et al. (2010) estimated the proportion of short-haul flights to be 86%, of medium-haul flights to be 10%, and of long-haul flights to be 4%. The number of flights per year is assumed to be 38.9 millions in 2019 (statista.com, ...
Terrestrial gamma ray flashes (TGFs) are bursts of high‐energy photons produced in thunderstorms. Photons are produced by bremsstrahlung from high‐energy electrons, gaining energy through the electric field in the thunderstorm. Both electrons and photons are ionizing radiation and could have an impact on the radiation exposure of commercial aircrews and passengers. Previous works from Dwyer et al. (2010) and Pallu et al. (2021) have quantified doses possibly delivered by TGFs. They showed that the photon doses are sufficiently low so as not to be taken into account in the calculation of the radiation doses received during flights. However, electrons could deliver high doses up to 1 Sv, though in a compact area around the TGF source. In this work, we estimate an upper bound of the probability for a commercial flight to find itself in the electron beam of a TGF. Using the first Fermi‐Gamma ray Burst Monitor TGF catalog and both simulated routes between airports as a first step and real flight routes from Air France airline for 2.5 years as a second step, we show that the probability is lower than one aircraft hit every 2 years for the total air traffic. Knowing that we did not take into account altitudes and the fact that pilots usually avoid thunderstorms, it is likely that no aircraft would have been hit by the source of a TGF since the beginning of the commercial aviation.
... The fuel consumption and emissions were calculated by Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT) (Roof et al., 2007). This inventory contained the mass emissions of PM for the year 2004 and 2006, including organic PM (2.6 Gg and 3.0 Gg), sulfur PM (2.1 Gg and 2.3 Gg) and nvPM emissions (6.1 Gg and 6.8 Gg), respectively (Wilkerson et al., 2010). ...
Global air transportation has grown rapidly in the past decade until the recent coronavirus pandemic. Previous research has demonstrated that particulate matter (PM) emissions from aircraft gas turbine engines can impair human health and environment, and may play a significant role in global climate change via direct absorption of solar radiation and indirect effect by their interaction with clouds. Using alternative aviation fuels (AAFs) from different sources have become a promising means to reduce aviation PM emissions and ensure energy sustainability. This work presents a review of non-volatile PM (nvPM) emission characteristics of aircraft gas turbine engines burning conventional aviation fuel (CAF) and CAF/AAF blends from recent ground and cruise tests. Current engine emission regulations, as well as available aviation PM emission prediction models and inventories are also discussed. Available nvPM emission characteristics, including particle number, particle mass, and particle size distribution (PSD), are analyzed and compared among different studies. The synthesized results indicate that burning AAFs tends to generate smaller size nvPM and reduce up to 90% nvPM number as well as 60–85% nvPM mass. The reduction is the most significant at low engine power settings, but becomes marginal at high engine power settings. The utilization of AAF blends reduces nvPM emission yet increases water vapor emission, which may promote contrail and even widespread cirrus cloud formation. Therefore, more investigation is required to quantify the potential impact of burning AAF at cruise altitudes on cloud formation and climate change. An appropriate estimation method for the particle number emissions from aircraft gas turbine engines fueled by both CAF and CAF/AAF blends is also in need aiming to establish a global aviation nvPM emission inventory and improve relevant global climate models.
... This fact and the societal push to reduce carbon emission has increased the interest to electrify transport vehicles. With the trend of increasing air travels and 85% of the flights are short haul flights [16], the development of electrifying electric aircraft to reduce emission is crucial. ...
The chapter presents a feasibility study for full-electric aircraft in terms of a conversion design. The advancement of energy storage technologies has given the potential to fully electrify future transport systems. The means of electrifying aircraft are to reduce carbon emission and increase efficiency in air transport. This chapter studies the feasibility of developing an all-electric short to midrange aircraft. The study investigates the possibility of replacing the aircraft’s conventional system with an all-electric drive train. Using the current conventional aircraft model, different types of electrical systems are compared to examine their advantages and limitations. The parameters of the turboprop-powered regional airliner De Havilland Canada Dash 8 (DH8D) and the average flight are used to analyze the feasibility of completing a desired range. Additionally, a reliability analysis is conducted for both the conventional and the electrified version of aircraft, including different electrified topologies. The results show that the electrification of aircraft with the studied propulsion system is not feasible for the conventional range, but producing an all-electric aircraft is possible when the technology allows for it. Furthermore, it could be shown that the increase of the number of fuel pumps in the conventional system in order to produce redundancy does not have a significant impact. The availability of the electric system results to be slightly lower compared to the conventional system. This fact arises due to the missing redundancy path for the electrical power supply subsystem.
... It should be noted that the balanced ecosystem exchange contribute no net annual uptake of CO 2 , but they make the greatest contribution to the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2 over most of the globe with the largest impact in the Northern Hemisphere [34]. Ship and plane emissions of CO 2 emission are estimated from the International Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) and System for assessing Aviations Global Emissions (SAGE) [40,41]. The concentration of atmospheric CO 2 in this study is calculated using these settings. ...
High-resolution solar absorption spectra, observed by ground-based Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), are used to retrieve vertical profiles and partial or total column concentrations of many trace gases. In this study, we present the tropospheric CO2 columns retrieved by mid-infrared solar spectra over Hefei, China. To reduce the influence of stratospheric CO2 cross-dependencies on tropospheric CO2, an a posteriori optimization method based on a simple matrix multiplication is used to correct the tropospheric CO2 profiles and columns. The corrected tropospheric CO2 time series show an obvious annual increase and seasonal variation. The tropospheric CO2 annual increase rate is 2.71 ± 0.36 ppm yr⁻¹, with the annual peak value in January, and CO2 decreases to a minimum in August. Further, the corrected tropospheric CO2 from GEOS-Chem simulations are in good agreement with the coincident FTIR data, with a correlation coefficient between GEOS-chem model and FTS of 0.89. The annual increase rate of XCO2 observed from near-infrared solar absorption spectra is in good agreement with the tropospheric CO2 but the annual seasonal amplitude of XCO2 is only about 1/3 of dry-air averaged mole fractions (DMF) of tropospheric CO2. This is mostly attributed to the seasonal variation of CO2 being mainly dominated by sources near the surface.
... Commercial aviation has a severe effect on our climate due to emission of harmful particulates and gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, lead etc. In 2017, aviation resulted in 859 million tonnes of CO2, which is roughly 2% of man-made carbon emissions [10]. According to some estimates, one round-trip of trans-Atlantic flight emits enough carbon dioxide to melt 30 square feet of Arctic sea ice. ...
Commercial aviation is one of the biggest contributors towards climate change. We propose to reduce environmental impact of aviation by considering solutions that would reduce the flight time. Specifically, we first consider improving winds aloft forecast so that flight planners could use better information to find routes that are efficient. Secondly, we propose an aircraft routing method that seeks to find the fastest route to the destination by considering uncertainty in the wind forecasts and then optimally trading-off between exploration and exploitation.
... This fact and the societal push to reduce carbon emission has increased the interest to electrify transport vehicles. With the trend of increasing air travels and 85% of the flights are short haul flights [1], the development of electrifying electric aircraft to reduce emission is crucial. ...
The paper presents a feasibility study for full-electric aircraft in terms of a conversion design. The advancement of energy storage technologies has given the potential to fully electrify future transport systems. The means of electrifying aircraft are to reduce carbon emission and increase efficiency in air transport. This paper studies the feasibility of developing an all-electric short to midrange aircraft. The study investigates the possibility of replacing the aircraft's conventional system with an all-electric drive train. Using the current conventional aircraft model, different types of electrical systems are compared to examine their advantages and limitations. The parameters of De Havilland Canada Dash 8 (DH8D) and the average flight are used to analyze the feasibility of completing a desired range. The results show that the electrification of aircraft with the studied propulsion system is not feasible for the conventional range, but producing an all-electric aircraft is possible when the technology allows for it. Additionally, a reliability analysis is conducted for both the conventional and the electrified version of aircraft, including different electric topologies, whereas a multiple electric motor topology is nearly as available as the conventional one.
... However, the impacts from this process as a whole are poorly understood with very little freely available data. As such, the predicted impact of this process is unknown but expected to be relatively small in comparison to other industries such as from aircraft which only account for between 2-3% of total anthropogenic CO 2 emissions from all activities [282]. would not be used to predict emissions of a given rocket engine type, particularly as they provide specific propellant formulations to reflect generic propellant types. ...
... Overall, this analysis estimates that total global contribution of space missions towards climate change is just 0.01% of total emissions for the 2018 scenario and 0.21% for the future scenario.For reference, this equates to 54 days and 1,082 days of daily averaged GHG emissions in Scotland for 2017[361]. Whilst this would indicate that the overall impact is insignificant in comparison to other sectors, in comparison to the global aviation industry (which currently accounts for between 2-3% of all anthropogenic CO 2 emissions)[282], this is a particularly alarming result. In this regard, the International Civil Aviation Organization reported that 38 million flights departed in 2018[362]. ...
Environmental Life Cycle Assessment is increasingly being applied within the space
industry to scientifically quantify environmental impacts of space missions over their
entire life cycle. This technique is particularly useful in early mission design phases since
adverse life cycle impacts are more difficult to modify the later into the design process
that they are identified. However, the use of Environmental Life Cycle Assessment does
not fully align with the concept of sustainability envisioned within the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development which seeks to "balance the three dimensions of sustainable
development: the economic, social and environmental". Despite this, combining all
three sustainability dimensions within a single life cycle study has thus far never been
attempted within the space industry.
To address this, a new space-specific Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment framework
and database was developed to assist industry advance this methodology by integrating
social and economic considerations into concurrent engineering activities. This
approach combines Environmental Life Cycle Assessment, Social Life Cycle Assessment
and Life Cycle Costing to enable engineers to create sustainable technologies and products for space that are cost-efficient, eco-efficient and socially responsible in the frame of the 2030 Agenda.
The application of the developed approach has been exemplified using case studies
for the design of next generation sustainable space systems, allowing conclusions to be
reached based on the interactions of each sustainability dimension during the mission
design process. It is expected this approach will assist the space industry to streamline
future decision-making and monitoring in a more systematic and coordinated fashion
which accords with the vision of sustainability outlined in the 2030 Agenda.
... The marginal impacts of aviation emissions are calculated using emissions inventories obtained from the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT) ( Wilkerson et al 2010). AEDT provides fuel burn and emission rates for NO x , hydrocarbons (HC), and primary particulate matter, for individual flight segments in space and time, for all annual commercial civil flights globally. ...
Aviation emissions have been found to cause 5% of global anthropogenic radiative forcing and ∼16 000 premature deaths annually due to impaired air quality. When aiming to reduce these impacts, decision makers often face trade-offs between different emission species or impacts in different times and locations. To inform rational decision-making, this study computes aviation's marginal climate and air quality impacts per tonne of species emitted and accounts for the altitude, location, and chemical composition of emissions. Climate impacts are calculated using a reduced-order climate model, and air quality-related health impacts are quantified using marginal atmospheric sensitivities to emissions from the adjoint of the global chemistry-transport model GEOS-Chem in combination with concentration response functions and the value of statistical life. The results indicate that 90% of the global impacts per unit of fuel burn are attributable to cruise emissions, and that 64% of all damages are the result of air quality impacts. Furthermore, nitrogen oxides (NO x ), carbon dioxide (CO2), and contrails are collectively responsible for 97% of the total impact. Applying our result metrics to an example, we find that a 20% NOx stringency scenario for new aircraft would reduce the net atmospheric impacts by 700 m USD during the first year of operation, even if the NO x emission reductions cause a small increase in CO2 emissions of 2%. In such a way, the damage metrics can be used to rapidly evaluate the atmospheric impacts of market growth as well as emissions trade-offs of aviation-related policies or technology improvements.
... Electric airplanes are limited in range due to the limited energy density of lithium batteries. Short haul flights up to 1.5 to 3 h with utmost 100 passengers have the potential to be electrified according to Wilkerson et al. [91] and Mueller et al. [80]. Consequently, this research assumes for 2050 that 18.7% of the flights measured in passenger kilometers representing short haul flights of less than 1.5 h and half of the flights between 1.5 and 3 h will be electric and twice that is assumed to be contributed by fuel-cellbased flights fueled by hydrogen (37.4%), while the rest representing the majority of all p-km for flights is projected to remain powered with jet fuel. ...
... The phase-in of all-electric flights is visualized in Figure 3, and based on the estimate of 11.7% of all p-km for flights up to 1.5 h and 23.4% of all p-km for flights within 1.5 and 3 h, whereas 80% of these flights should be served by all-electric flights in the longer term, which is projected to be achieved between 2050 and 2060. The assumed progress in aviation technology and respective implementation is based on today's understanding of technological options [84,90,91], first respective policies [52] and the enormous pressure to react on climate emergency [2,69,92,93,], while economics may be attractive and first leading technology providers and airlines push the development to introduce all-electric flights by 2030 [94]. ...
... Electric airplanes are limited in range due to the limited energy density of lithium batteries. Short haul flights up to 1.5 to 3 h with utmost 100 passengers have the potential to be electrified according to Wilkerson et al. [91] and Mueller et al. [80]. Consequently, this research assumes for 2050 that 18.7% of the flights measured in passenger kilometers representing short haul flights of less than 1.5 h and half of the flights between 1.5 and 3 h will be electric and twice that is assumed to be contributed by fuel-cell-based flights fueled by hydrogen (37.4%), while the rest representing the majority of all p-km for flights is projected to remain powered with jet fuel. ...
The pivotal target of the Paris Agreement is to keep temperature rise well below 2 °C above the pre-industrial level and pursue efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5 °C. To meet this target, all energy-consuming sectors, including the transport sector, need to be restructured. The transport sector accounted for 19% of the global final energy demand in 2015, of which the vast majority was supplied by fossil fuels (around 31,080 TWh). Fossil-fuel consumption leads to greenhouse gas emissions, which accounted for about 8260 MtCO2eq from the transport sector in 2015. This paper examines the transportation demand that can be expected and how alternative transportation technologies along with new sustainable energy sources can impact the energy demand and emissions trend in the transport sector until 2050. Battery-electric vehicles and fuel-cell electric vehicles are the two most promising technologies for the future on roads. Electric ships and airplanes for shorter distances and hydrogen-based synthetic fuels for longer distances may appear around 2030 onwards to reduce the emissions from the marine and aviation transport modes. The rail mode will remain the least energy-demanding, compared to other transport modes. An ambitious scenario for achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is applied, also demonstrating the very high relevance of direct and indirect electrification of the transport sector. Fossil-fuel demand can be reduced to zero by 2050; however, the electricity demand is projected to rise from 125 TWhel in 2015 to about 51,610 TWhel in 2050, substantially driven by indirect electricity demand for the production of synthetic fuels. While the transportation demand roughly triples from 2015 to 2050, substantial efficiency gains enable an almost stable final energy demand for the transport sector, as a consequence of broad electrification. The overall well-to-wheel efficiency in the transport sector increases from 26% in 2015 to 39% in 2050, resulting in a respective reduction of overall losses from primary energy to mechanical energy in vehicles. Power-to-fuels needed mainly for marine and aviation transport is not a significant burden for overall transport sector efficiency. The primary energy base of the transport sector switches in the next decades from fossil resources to renewable electricity, driven by higher efficiency and sustainability.
... We take account of hold freight in passenger aircraft when modelling aircraft weight load factor, but do not account for dedicated freighter aircraft, which carry around 40% of air freight (FTA 2008). Unscheduled passenger flights accounted for 5% of global RPK in 2015 (ICAO 2016), and military aviation has been estimated to be around 10-13% of aviation fuel use (Wilkerson et al. 2010). Therefore we expect our base ...
Policies aimed at influencing air transportation must operate in a complex, interacting global system of passengers, airlines, airports and other stakeholders. Tools which are capable of assessing policy outcomes in this situation are vital. Given the high uncertainty about future demand, costs and technology characteristics on policy-relevant timescales, such tools also need to allow the evaluation of outcomes from a wide range of plausible futures. This paper presents the validation study and initial baseline results from a comprehensive, open source update of the global AIM aviation systems model. We show that running the model from 2005 to 2015 using 2005 base year data reproduces well the observed demand levels and patterns of growth. Running from a 2015 base year, we project global demand in 2050 of between 13,800 billion and 46,000 billion revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), respectively 2.2 and 7.4 times year 2015 values, depending primarily on the future scenario for population, income and oil price assumed. Absent any radical change in aircraft technology, this would lead to global direct CO 2 emissions from aviation of between 876 and 2500 Mt, or 1.5 to 4.4 times the year-2015 level. This wide level of baseline variation may present a challenge for long-term aviation policy and its adaptability to different futures.
