Modeled Full-Flight Aircraft Emissions Impacts on Air Quality and Their Sensitivity to Grid Resolution

Aviation is a unique anthropogenic source with four-dimensional varying emissions, peaking at cruise altitudes (9–12 km). Aircraft emission budgets in the upper troposphere lower stratosphere region and their potential impacts on upper troposphere and surface air quality are not well understood. Our key objective is to use chemical transport models (with prescribed meteorology) to predict aircraft emissions impacts on the troposphere and surface air quality. We quantified the importance of including full-flight intercontinental emissions and increased horizontal grid resolution. The full-flight aviation emissions in the Northern Hemisphere contributed ~1.3% (mean, min–max: 0.46, 0.3–0.5 ppbv) and 0.2% (0.013, 0.004–0.02 μg/m(3)) of total O(3) and PM(2.5) concentrations at the surface, with Europe showing slightly higher impacts (1.9% (O(3) 0.69, 0.5–0.85 ppbv) and 0.5% (PM(2.5) 0.03, 0.01–0.05 μg/m(3))) than North America (NA) and East Asia. We computed seasonal aviation-attributable mass flux vertical profiles and aviation perturbations along isentropic surfaces to quantify the transport of cruise altitude emissions at the hemispheric scale. The comparison of coarse (108 × 108 km(2)) and fine (36 × 36 km(2)) grid resolutions in NA showed ~70 times and ~13 times higher aviation impacts for O(3) and PM(2.5) in coarser domain. These differences are mainly due to the inability of the coarse resolution simulation to capture nonlinearities in chemical processes near airport locations and other urban areas. Future global studies quantifying aircraft contributions should consider model resolution and perhaps use finer scales near major aviation source regions.