Metric for Comparing Lifetime average Climate Impact of Aircraft

The environmental impacts of commercial aviation, including climate change, are of growing importance in aircraft design. A framework is needed for comparing the climate impacts of competing aircraft designs and technologies. A metric is presented for this purpose: average temperature response. This metric quantifies the lifetime global mean temperature change caused by operation of a particular aircraft. This metric can be computed using any climate model. An example study of five aircraft using a linear climate model with altitude variation illustrates the range of climate performance for aircraft designed to the same requirements. For the particular example assumptions used, aircraft are designed with 10-50% lower average temperature responses and 1%higher operating costs relative to a minimum cost design. An uncertainty quantification study is also presented, demonstrating that uncertainty is not too great to make conclusions about the relative performance of different aircraft configurations. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]