Major new study finds global aviation is responsible for 3.5 per cent of human-induced climate change

Although it is established that aviation’s contribution to climate change goes further than just emissions of carbon dioxide from jet engines, there have been considerable uncertainties over the impact of non-CO2 effects from, for example, contrails and contrail cirrus created by engines at high altitude. Attempts have been made to come up with multiplication factors to calculate aviation’s true climate impact but they have not been driven by the science. A major new international study, the first of its kind since 2009, has now calculated aviation is responsible for 3.5% of all human activities that drive climate change. The study is unique in that for the first time the calculations have been made using a new metric – effective radiative forcing (ERF) – that was introduced in 2013 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Using the metric, the researchers found the impact from contrail cirrus is less than half previously estimated but is still the sector’s largest contributor to global warming.[...]

GreenAir Online

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