Impact of Flight Altitudes On Aviation Induced Climate Change

Abstract

The relocation of flight altitudes is a straightforward example how the impact of aviation on climate may be reduced by operational means. However, due to possible tradeoffs between the individual climate impact components, dedicated tools have to be developed to enable a swift quantitative assessment of the option of alternative flight routing. We report on current activities to develop such a tool. A comprehensive 3-dimensional (3d) climate model serves to calculate key numbers describing the impact of individual impact components for selected scenarios, while a linear global response model is used to convert these numbers into an overall impact metric for a given flight routing alternative. The approach builds on well-established models, which nevertheless have to be revised, extended, and then optimally combined to address the problem.