Cleaner burning aviation fuels can reduce contrail cloudiness

作者：Christiane Voigt, Jonas Kleine, Daniel N. Sauer, Richard H. Moore, Tiziana Bräuer, Patrick Le Clercq, Stefan Kaufmann, Monika Scheibe, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Manfred Aigner, Uwe H. Bauder, Yvonne Boose, Stephan Borrmann, Ewan Crosbie, Glenn S. Diskin, Joshua Paul DiGangi, Valerian Hahn, Christopher Heckl, Felix Huber, John B. Nowak, Markus Rapp, Bastian Rauch, Claire E Robinson, Tobias Schripp, Michael A. Shook, Edward L. Winstead, Luke D. Ziemba, Hans Schlager, B. E. Anderson · 发表于：Communications Earth & Environment · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1038/s43247-021-00174-y · 被引用次数：305 · 研究领域：Advanced Aircraft Design and Technologies、Rocket and propulsion systems research、Vehicle emissions and performance

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.