An intercomparative study of the effects of aircraft emissions on surface air quality

The models include climate-response models (CRMs) with interactive meteorology, chemical-transport models (CTMs) with prescribed meteorology, and models that integrate aspects of both. Model inputs are harmonized in an effort to achieve a consensus about the state of understanding of impacts of 2006 commercial aviation emissions.

Models find that aircraft increase near-surface ozone (0.3 to 1.9% globally), with qualitatively similar spatial distributions, highest in the Northern Hemisphere. Annual changes in surface-level PM2.5 in the CTMs (0.14 to 0.4%) and CRMs (-1.9 to 1.2%) depend on differences in nonaircraft baseline aerosol fields among models and the inclusion of feedbacks between aircraft emissions and changes in meteorology. The CTMs tend to result in an increase in surface PM2.5 primarily over high-traffic regions in the North American midlatitudes.