Estimates of the climate impact of future small-scale supersonic transport aircraft – results from the HISAC EU-project

Abstract

The climate impacts of three fleets of supersonic small-scale transport aircraft (S4TA) are simulated. Based on characteristic aircraft parameters, which were developed within the EU-project HISAC, emissions along geographically representative trajectories are calculated and in addition the resulting changes in the atmospheric composition (carbon dioxide, ozone layer, water vapour) and climate (near surface global mean temperature) are deduced. We assume a fleet development with an entry in service in 2015, a full fleet in 2050. The results show a temperature increase of 0·08mK (0·07-0·10mK) with only small but statistically significant variations between the configurations, leading to a minimum climate impact for a weight optimised and hence lower flying aircraft. A climate impact ratio of 3·0 ± 0·4 between a S4TA and its subsonic counterpart is calculated, which is considerable less than for previous supersonic fleets because of a lower flight altitude, leading to smaller water vapour impacts.