Ew. Meijer et al., THE EFFECTS OF THE CONVERSION OF NITROGEN-OXIDES IN AIRCRAFT EXHAUST PLUMES IN GLOBAL-MODELS, Geophysical research letters, 24(23), 1997, pp. 3013-3016
A parametrization is needed in global models to account for the sub-gr
id chemical processes taking place in the plume of an aircraft, since
these processes can cause the conversion of a considerable amount of t
he emitted NOx to reservoir species, such as HNO3. For this purpose, t
he chemical conversions of nitrogen oxides in the plume of an aircraft
were investigated with a newly developed model. The calculated fracti
ons of different nitrogen compounds formed within 24 hours in the exha
ust plumes, differentiated for the global domain and season, were used
to modify the original aircraft NOx emissions from the ANCAT emission
inventory tb emissions of various nitrogen compounds and we applied t
hese to the global Chemistry Transport Model KNMI (CTMK). The results
obtained imply that neglect of aircraft plume processes in global mode
ling leads to an overestimation of the NOx and O-3 perturbations. Comp
ared with a CTMK calculation with unmodified aircraft NOx emissions, t
he NOx perturbations in the North Atlantic flight corridor (NAFC) decr
eased by 15%-55%, due to conversions in the plumes. The resulting O-3
perturbation decreased by 15%-25%.