The natural and radiatively perturbed troposphere. CIAP monograph 4. Final report

Technical Report · Mon Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1975

OSTI ID:7347082

The Climatic Impact Assessment Program (CIAP) of the U.S. Department of Transportation is charged with the 'assessment' of the impact of future aircraft fleets and other vehicles operating in, or transiting through, the stratosphere. Monograph 4 considers the perturbations of the UV radiation and the climate at the earth's surface, which could be caused by the emissions of engine effluents from a potential, large-scale operation of aircraft in the lower stratosphere. Perturbation of the UV radiation depends primarily on the magnitude of the NOx emission index (i.e., g of NO/sub 2//kg of fuel), since the NOx effluents would produce an ozone column decrease and, therefore, a UV radiation increase at the earth's surface. Monograph 4 treats the problem of the UV radiation increase from solutions of the radiative transfer equation for clear sky conditions. These solutions yield the maximum increase in the direct and diffuse components of UV radiation as a function of wavelength, solar zenith angle, and ozone decrease. Perturbations of the earth's climate would depend on the magnitude of the NOx, SO2, and H2O engine effluents. In contrast to predicting UV radiation changes, it is impossible to conclusively predict the climate perturbations at the present time: the current understanding of the processes controlling the variability of the earth's climate, i.e., the general circulations of air in the atmosphere and sea water in the oceans, is limited. Considerations of climate perturbations are restricted to partial descriptions of geophysical phenomena, involving the use of mechanistic models to describe the temperature radiation couplings in time scales of decades, which seems to be appropriate for CIAP. (GRA)

• Research Organization: Institute for Defense Analyses, Arlington, Va. (USA). Science and Technology Div.
• OSTI ID: 7347082
• Report Number(s): PB-249316
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500100* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Basic Studies-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR TRANSPORT
AIRCRAFT
CLIMATES
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
OZONE
POLLUTION
RADIATIONS
STRATOSPHERE
SUPERSONIC TRANSPORT
TRANSPORT
TROPOSPHERE
ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION