Abstract
AbstractThe aeronautical community is currently researching technology that might lead to commercial hypersonic aircraft that would cruise at Mach 5–8 in the middle or upper stratosphere and would transfer passengers from London to New York or from Los Angeles to Tokyo in just a couple of hours. Depending on the engine technology to be adopted, these aircraft will potentially release substantial amounts of water vapor and nitrogen oxides around 30–40 km altitude. We show here that the operation of a large fleet of such aircraft could potentially deplete considerable amounts of ozone in the stratosphere, which would lead to a substantial increase in biologically damaging ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth's surface. The calculations are based on a specific emission scenario, which carries large uncertainties but can easily be scaled to account for the type of aircraft engine to be eventually adopted, improved technology to be expected, and the size and operation conditions of the future aircraft fleet.
Highlights
The aeronautical community is currently researching technology which might lead to the development of a fleet of commercial hypersonic transport (HST) at some time in the future
Because of the large uncertainties existing on the number of aircraft to be deployed, the engine technology to be adopted, and the emission indices to be achieved in modern combustion chambers, we present here sensitivity studies that illustrate the potential impact of a hypothetical fleet of future hypersonic aircraft on the chemical composition of the atmosphere and on the ozone abundance
We derive the impact of these emissions on the global atmosphere by using the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1), Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) for the 2050 period
Summary
The aeronautical community is currently researching technology which might lead to the development of a fleet of commercial hypersonic transport (HST) at some time in the future This new generation of aircraft with a 5,000 nautical mile range (about 9,000 km) would allow passengers to cross the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean in just 2 to 3 hr at a speed of Mach 5–8. This study should be viewed as an attempt to quantify the sensitivity of the stratospheric ozone concentration and of the ozone column abundance to localized emissions of nitrogen oxides and water vapor in the middle and upper stratosphere and to identify a possible threat to the biosphere (including humans) from the potential operation in the future of a fleet of hypersonic aircraft
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