Monitoring the atmospheric composition and the impact of aircraft emissions
The atmospheric composition is the result of natural and anthropogenic emissions combined with transport and chemical processes.
The AE team is involved in the monitoring of the chemical composition of the atmosphere and the evaluation of the anthropogenic impact emissions, in particular those due to the air traffic.
The AE team is involved in the monitoring of the chemical composition of the atmosphere and the evaluation of the anthropogenic impact emissions, in particular those due to the air traffic.
The aircraft emissions can have an impact on atmospheric chemistry and on the radiative balance of the atmosphere. For example, contrails formed by condensation of water vapour onto exhaust aerosols and soot particles trigger the formation of cirrus clouds. Emissions of nitrogen oxides perturb the natural chemical cycles and lead to ozone production or destruction depending on local air mass composition and insolation. These ozone perturbations along with the emissions of CO2, water vapour and ice particles formation, soot particles, sulphuric aerosols from the burning kerosene give an additional contribution to the green house forcing. The most recent evaluations of those effects show the existence of a amplification factor of about 3 for green house potential factor from aircraft emission: a molecule of CO2 emitted from a jet airplane is a factor of 3 more efficient for green house forcing than a similar molecule emitted at ground level.
Given the exponential increase of the air traffic it is anticipated that the aircraft emissions will double by year 2020 compared to present. The air traffic would then be a major player of the climate change. There is no doubt that in future negotiation processes for the limitation of green house gas emissions aviation sources will be a central issue. It is therefore important that the regulations that could be imposed on aviation be based on well-sound scientific studies.
In that context the monitoring of the atmospheric composition is of particular importance. The objective is to detect and possibly attribute the observed changes to natural or anthropogenic forcing.
To this end, the AE team is involved in national and Europeanu projects with the implementation of data assimilation systems for the monitoring of trace species involved in the atmospheric O3 chemistry.
The following pages describe our current efforts in those areas.
Given the exponential increase of the air traffic it is anticipated that the aircraft emissions will double by year 2020 compared to present. The air traffic would then be a major player of the climate change. There is no doubt that in future negotiation processes for the limitation of green house gas emissions aviation sources will be a central issue. It is therefore important that the regulations that could be imposed on aviation be based on well-sound scientific studies.
In that context the monitoring of the atmospheric composition is of particular importance. The objective is to detect and possibly attribute the observed changes to natural or anthropogenic forcing.
To this end, the AE team is involved in national and Europeanu projects with the implementation of data assimilation systems for the monitoring of trace species involved in the atmospheric O3 chemistry.
The following pages describe our current efforts in those areas.
SWAFEA project accepted in FP'7
SWAFEA project (Sustainable way for alternative fuels and energy for aviation) has been accepted in FP'7.
