Case Study for Testing the Validity of NOx-Ozone Algorithmic Climate Change Functions for Optimising Flight Trajectories

Abstract

One possibility to reduce the climate impact of aviation is the avoidance of climate-sensitive regions, which is synonymous with climate-optimised flight planning. Those regions can be identified by algorithmic Climate Change Functions (aCCFs) for nitrogen oxides (NO x x), water vapour (H 2 2O) as well as contrail cirrus, which provide a measure of climate effects associated with corresponding emissions. In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of reducing the aviation-induced climate impact via ozone (O 3) formation (resulting from NO x x emissions), when solely using O 3 3 aCCFs for the aircraft trajectory optimisation strategy. The effectiveness of such a strategy and the associated potential mitigation of climate effects is explored by using the chemistry–climate model EMAC (ECHAM5/MESSy) with various submodels. A summer and winter day, characterised by a large spatial variability of the O 3 3 aCCFs, are selected.