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Mesoscale Numerical Investigations of Air Traffic Emissions over the North Atlantic during SONEX Flight 8: A Case StudyChemical data from flight 8 of NASA's Subsonic Assessment (SASS) Ozone and Nitrogen Oxide Experiment (SONEX) exhibited signatures consistent with aircraft emissions, stratospheric air, and surface-based pollution. These signatures are examined in detail, focussing on the broad aircraft emission signatures that are several hundred kilometers in length. A mesoscale meteorological model provides high resolution wind data that are used to calculate backward trajectories arriving at locations along the flight track. These trajectories are compared to aircraft locations in the North Atlantic Flight Corridor over a 27-33 hour period. Time series of flight level NO and the number of trajectory/aircraft encounters within the NAFC show excellent agreement. Trajectories arriving within the stratospheric and surface-based pollution regions are found to experience very few aircraft encounters. Conversely, there are many trajectory/aircraft encounters within the two chemical signatures corresponding to aircraft emissions. Even many detailed fluctuations of NO within the two aircraft signature regions correspond to similar fluctuations in aircraft encountered during the previous 27-33 hours. Results indicate that high resolution meteorological modeling, when coupled with detailed aircraft location data, is useful for understanding chemical signatures from aircraft emissions at scales of several hundred kilometers.
Document ID
19990040669
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Bieberbach, George, Jr. (Florida State Univ. Tallahassee, FL United States)
Fuelberg, Henry E. (Florida State Univ. Tallahassee, FL United States)
Thompson, Anne M. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Schmitt, Alf (Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany)
Hannan, John R. (Florida State Univ. Tallahassee, FL United States)
Gregory, G. L. (NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA United States)
Kondo, Yutaka (Nagoya Univ. Toyokawa, Japan)
Knabb, Richard D. (Florida State Univ. Tallahassee, FL United States)
Sachse, G. W. (NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA United States)
Talbot, R. W. (Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space Durham, NH United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
March 1, 1999
Subject Category
Environment Pollution
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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