NTL Record

Title Marginal Climate and Air Quality Costs of Aviation Emissions
Record ID 74755
Personal Name
Creator
Grobler, Carla; Wolfe, Philip J.; Dasadhikari, Kingshuk; Dedoussi, Irene C; Allroggen, Florian; Speth, Raymond; Eastham, Sebastian D.; Agarwal, Akshat; Staples, Mark; Sabnis, Jayant; Barrett, Steven R.H.
Corporate Creator United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and Environment; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Corporate
Contributor
United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Environment and Energy
Publisher United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and Environment; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Publication Date 20191100
Language English
Abstract Aviation emissions have been found to cause 5% of global anthropogenic radiative forcing and ~16 000 premature deaths annually due to impaired air quality. When aiming to reduce these impacts, decision makers often face trade-offs between different emission species or impacts in different times and locations. To inform rational decision-making, this study computes aviation's marginal climate and air quality impacts per tonne of species emitted and accounts for the altitude, location, and chemical composition of emissions. Climate impacts are calculated using a reduced-order climate model, and air quality-related health impacts are quantified using marginal atmospheric sensitivities to emissions from the adjoint of the global chemistry-transport model GEOS-Chem in combination with concentration response functions and the value of statistical life. The results indicate that 90% of the global impacts per unit of fuel burn are attributable to cruise emissions, and that 64% of all damages are the result of air quality impacts. Furthermore, nitrogen oxides (NO x ), carbon dioxide (CO2), and contrails are collectively responsible for 97% of the total impact. Applying our result metrics to an example, we find that a 20% NOx stringency scenario for new aircraft would reduce the net atmospheric impacts by 700 m USD during the first year of operation, even if the NO x emission reductions cause a small increase in CO2 emissions of 2%. In such a way, the damage metrics can be used to rapidly evaluate the atmospheric impacts of market growth as well as emissions trade-offs of aviation-related policies or technology improvements.
Public Note Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Rosap ID dot:50412
Rosap URL https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/50412
TRT Terms Aviation; Air quality; Climate change; Emissions testing
General Subjects ASCENT
Geographical
Coverage
United States
Contract Number 13-C-AJFE-MIT, 07, 18, 25, 32, 41: 13-C-AJFE-MIT, 04, 17, 24, 37, 42
Report Number EnvironResLett_14_114031
Resource type Journal Article
URL https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/74000/74700/74755/20-21-Grobler_2019_Environ._Res._Lett._14_114031_pub.pdf
Format PDF
Database NTL Digital Repository