It’s not just road transport that is having a significant effect on global warming – air traffic is also seen as a major contributor.
According to a new study by a team at the Dalton Research Institute in the UK, carbon dioxide and other gases from air traffic are expected to double or triple by 2050.
The study, published in the ACS Journal Environmental Science & Technology, outlines that aviation is not currently one of the main drivers of global warming – it currently contributes between two and three per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.
However, it is predicted that by 2100 carbon dioxide emissions from aviation could reach seven times their existing levels. To reach this conclusion they used a global model of aircraft movements and emissions to calculate fuel use and emissions to 2050 and beyond. The scenarios saw the authors examine technology trends in detail and develop plausible projections for fuel efficiency and emissions for each scenario.
It is expected that future emissions will grow between 2000 and 2050 by a factor in the range of 2.0 and 3.6 depending on the scenario with emissions of oxides of nitrogen over the same period projected to grow by between a factor of 1.2 and 2.7.
