Stay Grounded Factsheet It's about more than just CO2

/ 3STAY GROUNDED | Fact Sheet, October 2022 It's about more than just CO2 Aviation must reduce its total impact on climate STAY GROUNDED FACT SHEET | OCTOBER 2022 THE FACTS 1. TOTAL AVIATION-CAUSED CLIMATE HEATING IS 3 TIMES THAT OF CO2 ALONE. As stated by the IPCC already in 1999, persistent contrails and aviation induced cirrus (AIC), as well as NOx deriva- tives, although short-lived, contribute significantly more to global heating than aircraft CO2 emissions alone. Aviation’s contribution to today‘s global heating, measured as Radia- tive Forcing (RF)³ from 1750 until today, has been estima- ted by the IPCC and the estimate is regularly updated by academic researchers. In September 2020, 21 scientists prominent in the field published a reassessment taking into account the Effec- tive Radiative Forcing (ERF) of non-CO2 components. Their study concludes that today’s total climate impact of avia- tion is about 3 times greater than the impact alone of all the accumulated CO2 emitted by aircraft and remaining in the atmosphere since flying began. This effective radiative forcing, caused by the accumulated CO2 together with the short-lived non-CO2 components which reappear everyday that flights continue, has contributed about 3.5% to the to- tal anthropogenic global heating, one third from CO2 and two thirds from non-CO2. The study also assessed the immediate and likely future impact of current aviation activity using a newly developed method5 that combines the heating effects of short-lived non-CO2 contributors and long-lived CO2. The researchers established that for the year 2018, total…

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Call to order – Roll Call – Quorum Established – Land Acknowledgement We would like to acknowledge that our Agency operates in four present-day counties, which are the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people, past and present. This acknowledgement does not take the place of authentic relationships with indigenous communities in our jurisdiction and [...]