Toward sustainable aviation industry: assessing the impact of emissions from aircraft trajectories

Aviation is known as one of the industries that contribute to climate change and the most relevant contributor with reference to emissions at high altitude. Aviation industry’s GHGs (Greenhouse Gases) are set to continue to grow, despite technological innovation advancement in this sector, and the aviation industry is highly unlikely to achieve the carbon neutral growth within the next years and it will likely remain an important source of air pollutants. Since 1990, NOx (Nitrogen Oxides) emissions from aviation have doubled and its share has quadrupled (while emissions from other sectors like traffic or industry have been significantly reduced); in the same way, relative contribution of sulphur oxides and carbon monoxide have gone up. In 2015, it accounted for 14% of all EU transport NOx emissions and for 7% of the total EU NOx emissions.

In the effort to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases and air pollution, a lot of improvement is needed to ensure that the aviation industry reduces its carbon footprint and impact on air pollution in this fast-growing economic scenario. For these reasons, an in-depth study of the relationship between environment and aviation, focusing on all aspects of ATM (Air Traffic Management), is needed to reduce the environmental impact of flight operations. For this purpose, an advanced system for studying the impact of air quality at different spatial and temporal scales is proposed to analyze in detail the impact of emissions from the aeronautical sector, both on a local scale, e.g. in TMAs (Terminal Maneuvering Areas), and on a regional/global scale, e.g. along cruise routes beyond the planetary boundary layer and into the stratosphere.

In this work, we present a complete system to assess the impact of emissions from the aviation sector, follow their fate in the atmosphere due to dispersion processes, evaluate the production of secondary pollutants (mainly ozone and particulate matter) and evaluate the effects of climatological interest (radiative effects, transport in the stratosphere).

For demonstration purposes, it will be shown how these tools can be used for a detailed bottom-up analysis of airport emissions on the local scale; global emissions will be used for an analysis of the effects of the trend of emissions from the aeronautical sector.