Air Quality
Aircraft produce emissions that react in the atmosphere to form pollutants that impact air quality. These emissions have long been regulated through standards for aircraft engines for oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), unburned hydrocarbons (UHC), and smoke, via a Smoke Number (SN). New standards are being developed for non-volatile particulate matter (nvPM). Much is understood about how these and other emissions affect air quality in airports and in the regions around them. Ongoing research efforts are extending that understanding through better measurements and modeling. Work on PM is directed at developing the new nvPM standard, and increasing the available data on aircraft engine PM emissions. Alternative fuels have the potential to reduce PM emissions significantly. Emissions inventories are developed to calculate the contributions of all emissions to the ambient burden of pollutant concentrations that, in turn, are used to estimate the impacts on air quality and human health. Aircraft emissions at cruise altitude can also propagate back to affect local and regional air quality, and estimates of this contribution and the associated uncertainties have been calculated.
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