Laboratory Studies of the Effects of Ambient Conditions, Soot Emissions, and Fuel Properties on Contrail Formation
Abstract
Contrail formation by aircraft can affect the global radiation budget and is the most uncertain component of aviation impacts on climate change. Field campaigns studying contrail formation have given insight into their formation pathways. However in order to improve simulations of contrail production, laboratory studies of the initial processes of contrail formation from aircraft-emitted soot are needed. As part of the Aviation Climate Change Research Initiative (ACCRI), laboratory studies of contrail formation from simulated aircraft emissions were performed at the particulate aerosol laboratory (PAL) at the NASA Glenn Research Center. The facility consists of a controlled soot source connected to a flow-through chamber which can simulate atmospheric conditions at altitudes up to 45,000 ft. Soot was made by a propane-fueled CAST generator and allowed to mix with water vapor and sulfuric acid to simulate aircraft emissions. Optical particle counters were employed at two distances from the nozzle tip that provided number concentration and size distributions of newly formed ice particles. The formation of ice particles is presented for chamber temperatures and pressures simulating altitudes between 15,000 and 40,000 feet. Initial results show the role of soot concentration, soot size, concentration of co-emitted pollutants and ambient conditions in ice particle formation.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFM.A13B0202B
- Keywords:
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- 0300 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0305 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Aerosols and particles;
- 1699 GLOBAL CHANGE / General or miscellaneous;
- 3311 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Clouds and aerosols