Fig. 1: Net NOx radiative forcing by emission rate, original CH4 parameterisation. | Nature Communications

Fig. 1: Net NOx radiative forcing by emission rate, original CH4 parameterisation.

From: Greater fuel efficiency is potentially preferable to reducing NOx emissions for aviation’s climate impacts

Fig. 1

Aviation net NOx radiative forcing (RF) (the sum of the short-term positive O3 RF perturbation and the negative RF terms caused by a reduction in CH4 lifetime, see Methods), by aviation NOx emission rate according to a range of background emission scenarios, utilising the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report59 simplified expression for the calculation of CH4 forcing. Aviation net NOx RF systematically increases with increasing NOx emissions from aviation, showing a variation according to the background surface emissions, with high mitigation (RCP 2.6) having a smaller aviation net NOx RF than, lower mitigation scenarios (RCP 4.5, RCP 8.5) for the same aviation NOx emission. Overall uncertainties are indicated by the grey shading, which is one standard deviation (68% confidence interval) from the ensemble of 20 NOx studies presented in Supplementary Fig. 1.

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