Concept of robust climate-friendly flight planning under multiple climate impact estimates

Abstract

The spatiotemporal dependency of aviation-induced non-CO2 climate effects can be incorporated into flight planning tools to generate climate-friendly flight plans. However, estimating climate impact is challenging and associated with high uncertainty. To ensure the effectiveness of such an operational measure, sources that induce uncertainty need to be identified and considered when planning climate-aware trajectories. The mismatch between different assessments of climate impact is an important indicator of uncertainty. This study introduces a concept aimed at planning robust climate-optimized aircraft trajectories under multiple climate impact estimates. The objective is to generate climate-optimal trajectories that achieve mitigation potential consistent with all available assessments. Case studies show that, even when there is a significant discrepancy between input models in specific regions, the proposed approach can effectively generate trajectories to mitigate the climate impact with a high level of confidence.