Reducing the Impact of Aviation on Climate

The consequences of human influence on climate changes are more and more noticeable and their causes are also better understood today. The aviation industry is one that has a significant impact on the environment as it becomes ever more popular. While the negative effects of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides (СО2 and NOx) have been known for some time, new studies show that the trails left by aircraft engines at high altitude create clouds that can have an impact on climate. Vapour trails, or contrails, trap outgoing longwave radiation emitted by the Earth and atmosphere (positive radiative forcing) at a greater rate than they reflect incoming solar radiation (negative radiative forcing). Therefore, the overall net effect of contrails is positive, i.e. a warming.

Although a consensus has emerged on the impact of contrails on the climate, quantitative estimation is difficult because it requires a complex interdisciplinary treatment of the information. That’s why the existing estimates have until now been qualitative rather than quantitative. But the participants of the ISTC project #3097 managed to analyze the composition of contrails, to calculate the atmospheric conditions of their formation and to determine some impacts on the environment.

Scientists and specialists from the Gromov Flight Research Institute, LII (Zhukovsky, Moscow region) in cooperation with the experts from AIRBUS and European project AERONET III developed the quantitative model to forecast contrails left by aircrafts with different types of gas-turbine engines. ISTC Project brought together a team of leading experts from Baranov Central Institute of Aviation Motors development (TsIAM), Central Aerological Observatory (CAO), Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), and the Institute of Nuclear Physics MSU.

Using a special aircraft – flying laboratory Tupolev-154 LL-, a series of flight experiments were carried out. It enabled researchers to prove the theoretical model. The results obtained in Project #3097 open new possibilities to decrease contrail and their harmful influence on the earth’s climate.

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