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Potential climate impact of black carbon emitted by rockets
Author(s) -
Ross Martin,
Mills Michael,
Toohey Darin
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2010gl044548
Subject(s) - environmental science , atmospheric sciences , carbon black , astrobiology , carbon fibers , climatology , climate change , meteorology , physics , geology , oceanography , materials science , natural rubber , composite number , composite material
A new type of hydrocarbon rocket engine is expected to power a fleet of suborbital rockets for commercial and scientific purposes in coming decades. A global climate model predicts that emissions from a fleet of 1000 launches per year of suborbital rockets would create a persistent layer of black carbon particles in the northern stratosphere that could cause potentially significant changes in the global atmospheric circulation and distributions of ozone and temperature. Tropical stratospheric ozone abundances are predicted to change as much as 1%, while polar ozone changes by up to 6%. Polar surface temperatures change as much as one degree K regionally with significant impacts on polar sea ice fractions. After one decade of continuous launches, globally averaged radiative forcing from the black carbon would exceed the forcing from the emitted CO 2 by a factor of about 10 5 and would be comparable to the radiative forcing estimated from current subsonic aviation.