Preventing depletion of stratospheric ozone. Implications on future aircraft emissions

There is much recent renewed interest in the development of faster aircraft for intercontinental passenger flights. Such aircraft would likely spend a large fraction of their flight time in the stratosphere, at altitudes as high as 35 km. The aircraft industry work together with the atmospheric science community to insure that furture aircraft emissions will not deplete stratospheric ozone. In this study, we have used our two-dimensional model of the troposphere and stratosphere to examine the sensitivity of stratospheric ozone to such emissions. Initial results indicate that substantial decreases in stratospheric ozone could result. The decrease in ozone is sensitive to the altitude and latitude in the emissions. Effects to ozone, for the same emission rate, tend to be larger as altitude increases, until a maximum effect is reached near 30 km.