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Cleaner burning aviation fuels can reduce contrail cloudiness

Environmental Studies and Forestry

Cleaner burning aviation fuels can reduce contrail cloudiness

C. Voigt, J. Kleine, et al.

In groundbreaking research conducted by Christiane Voigt, Jonas Kleine, and a team of experts, unique observations from aircraft campaigns reveal that contrail cirrus significantly influence aviation's climate impact. The study demonstrates that using low aromatic sustainable aviation fuel leads to a dramatic reduction in soot emissions, subsequently minimizing warming effects. Discover how shifting to sustainable fuels can create a greener future for aviation!... show more
Abstract
Contrail cirrus account for the major share of aviation's climate impact. Yet, the links between jet fuel composition, contrail microphysics and climate impact remain unresolved. Here we present unique observations from two DLR-NASA aircraft campaigns that measured exhaust and contrail characteristics of an Airbus A320 burning either standard jet fuels or low aromatic sustainable aviation fuel blends. Our results show that soot particles can regulate the number of contrail cirrus ice crystals for current emission levels. We provide experimental evidence that burning low aromatic sustainable aviation fuel can result in a 50 to 70% reduction in soot and ice number concentrations and an increase in ice crystal size. Reduced contrail ice numbers cause less energy deposition in the atmosphere and less warming. Meaningful reductions in aviation's climate impact could therefore be obtained from the widespread adoptation of low aromatic fuels, and from regulations to lower the maximum aromatic fuel content.
Publisher
Communications Earth & Environment
Published On
Jun 17, 2021
Authors
Christiane Voigt, Jonas Kleine, Daniel Sauer, Richard H. Moore, Tiziana Bräuer, Patrick Le Clercq, Stefan Kaufmann, Monika Scheibe, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Manfred Aigner, Uwe Bauder, Yvonne Boose, Stephan Borrmann, Ewan Crosbie, Glenn S. Diskin, Joshua DiGangi, Valerian Hahn, Christopher Heckl, Felix Huber, John B. Nowak, Markus Rapp, Bastian Rauch, Claire Robinson, Tobias Schripp, Michael Shook, Edward Winstead, Luke Ziemba, Hans Schlager, Bruce E. Anderson
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00174-y
Tags
contrail cirrus
climate impact
sustainable aviation fuel
soot emissions
ice crystal size

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