NTL Record

Title The Impact of NOx Emissions From Lightning on the Production of Aviation-Induced Ozone
Record ID 81745
Personal Name
Creator
Khodayaria, Arezoo; Vitt, Francis; Phoenix, Daniel; Wuebbles, Donald J.
Corporate Creator United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and Environment; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Corporate
Contributor
United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Environment and Energy
Publisher Elsevier
Publication Date 20180500
Language English
Abstract Due to the non-linear nature of ozone production in the troposphere, ozone production as a function of aviation nitrogen oxide (NOx = NO + NO2) emissions varies based on the background NOx levels. Of the several different sources of background NOx in the atmosphere, NOx from lightning (LNOx) contributes a substantial amount of NOx to the upper troposphere and has an effect on the ozone production efficiency, even though the LNOx source still has significant uncertainty. In this study, CAM5, the atmospheric component of the Community Earth System Model (CESM), was used to study the effect of uncertainties in NOx emissions from lightning on the production of aviation-induced ozone. Three sensitivity studies were analyzed with varying LNOx values of 3.7, 5, and 7.4 TgN/yr, representing the best current range estimates for LNOx. Results show a decrease in the aviation-induced ozone production rate and radiative forcing (RF) as LNOx increases. This is tied to the decreased ozone production under NOx saturated conditions. The ozone production per unit of NOx emission from lightning ranges from 2.38 TgO3/TgN for the case with 3.7 TgN from lightning to 0.97 TgO3/TgN for the case with 7.4 TgN from lightning. Similarly, the O3 RF decreases from 43.9 mW/m2 for the 3.7 TgN/yr case to 34.3 mW/m2 for 7.4 TgN/yr case. Understanding the current sensitivity of aviation-induced ozone production to the LNOx strength is important for reducing the uncertainty in ozone production from aviation NOx emissions.
Public Note This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Rosap ID dot:56980
Rosap URL https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/56980
TRT Terms Ozone; Aviation; Lightning; Emissions testing; Evaporative emissions
General Subjects Aviation-induced ozone; lightning NOx; PARTNER; ASCENT
Geographical
Coverage
United States
TRIS Online
Accession No
1780704
Contract Number 13-C-AJFE-UI-
Report Number j.atmosenv.2018.05.057
Resource type Manuscript
URL https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/81000/81700/81745/22-j.atmosenv.2018.05.057_pub_impact_of_NOx.pdf
Format PDF
Database NTL Digital Repository