Affiliation:
1. Science Systems and Applications, Inc. Hampton VA USA
2. NASA Langley Research Center Hampton VA USA
Abstract
AbstractThe radiative effects of the large‐scale air traffic slowdown during April and May 2020 due to the international response to the COVID‐19 pandemic are estimated by comparing the coverage (CC), optical properties, and radiative forcing of persistent linear contrails over the conterminous United States and two surrounding oceanic air corridors during the slowdown period and a similar baseline period during 2018 and 2019 when air traffic was unrestricted. The detected CC during the slowdown period decreased by an area‐averaged mean of 41% for the three analysis boxes. The retrieved contrail optical properties were mostly similar for both periods. Total shortwave contrail radiative forcings (CRFs) during the slowdown were 34% and 42% smaller for Terra and Aqua, respectively. The corresponding differences for longwave CRF were 33% for Terra and 40% for Aqua. To account for the impact of any changes in the atmospheric environment between baseline and slowdown periods on detected CC amounts, the contrail formation potential (CFP) was computed from reanalysis data. In addition, a filtered CFP (fCFP) was also developed to account for factors that may affect contrail formation and visibility of persistent contrails in satellite imagery. The CFP and fCFP were combined with air traffic data to create empirical models that estimated CC during the baseline and slowdown periods and were compared to the detected CC. The models confirm that decreases in CC and radiative forcing during the slowdown period were mostly due to the reduction in air traffic, and partly due to environmental changes.
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Subject
Space and Planetary Science,Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous),Atmospheric Science,Geophysics
Reference48 articles.
1. Airlines for America (A4A). (2021).Impact of COVID‐19: Data updates (ver. 8). Retrieved fromhttps://www.airlines.org/dataset/impact-of-covid19-data-updates/
2. Properties of linear contrails in the Northern Hemisphere derived from 2006 Aqua MODIS observations
3. Estimating the Effective Radiative Forcing of Contrail Cirrus
4. Reassessing properties and radiative forcing of contrail cirrus using a climate model
5. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. (2022).Transtats – flights all carriers – all airports. Retrieved fromhttps://www.transtats.bts.gov/Data_Elements.aspx?Data=2
Cited by
3 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献