Launch of spacecraft using solid rocket motors leads to release of gaseous and particulate matter in the stratosphere. Concern over these emissions, particularly chlorine, goes back to the Climatic Impact Assessment Program (Hoshizaki, 1975). The buildup of these exhaust products and their perturbation to stratospheric ozone is followed with two- and three-dimensional atmospheric chemical transport models. Chlorine enhancements due to the current rate of shuttle launches is small, on average less than 0.6% above the current background. Other gases emitted from the solid rockets appear to have even smaller global effects, although the impact of particulate alumina remains uncertain.

The global modeling initiative (GMI) science team is developing a three-dimensional chemistry and transport model (CTM) for use in assessment of the atmospheric effects of aviation. This model must be documented, be validated against observations, use a realistic atmospheric circulation, and contain numerical transport and photochemical modules representing atmospheric processes. The model must retain computational efficiency for multiple scenarios and sensitivity studies. To meet these requirements, a facility model concept was developed in which the different components of the CTM are evaluated separately. The assessment of the impact on the stratosphere of the exhaust of supersonic aircraft will depend strongly on the meteorological fields used by the CTM. Three data sets for the stratosphere were considered: the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate Model (CCM2), the Goddard Earth Observing System data assimilation system, and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies general circulation model. Objective criteria were developed to identify the data set that provides the best representation of the stratosphere. Simulations of gases with simple chemical control were chosen to test various aspects of model transport. The data sets were evaluated and graded on their performance on these tests. The CCM2 meteorological data set has the highest score and was selected for GMI. This objective model evaluation establishes a physical basis for interpretation of differences between models and observations. Further, the method provides a quantitative basis for defining model errors, for discriminating between different models, and for ready reevaluation of improved models. This will lead to higher confidence in assessment calculations.

The NASA Atmospheric Effects of Aviation Project (AEAP) Global Modeling Initiative (GMI) three-dimensional (3-D) chemical transport model (CTM) was applied to assess the impact of a fleet of high-speed civil transports (HSCTs) on abundances of stratospheric ozone, total inorganic nitrogen (NO_y), and H₂O. This model is specifically designed to incorporate a diversity of approaches to chemical and physical processes related to the stratosphere in a single computing framework, facilitating the analysis of model component differences, modeling intercomparison and comparison with data. A proposed HSCT fleet scenario was adopted, in which the aircraft cruise in the lower stratosphere, emitting nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and water (H₂O). The model calculated an HSCT-induced change in Northern and Southern Hemisphere total column ozone of +0.2% and +0.05%, respectively. This change is the result of a balance between an increase in local ozone below approximately 25 km and a decrease above this altitude. When compared to available NO_y observations, we find that the model consistently underestimates lower stratospheric NO_y. This discrepancy is consistent with the model bias toward less negative ozone impact, when compared to results from other models. Additional analysis also indicates that for an HSCT assessment it is equally important for a model to accurately represent the lower stratospheric concentrations of ozone and H₂O. The GMI model yields good agreement in comparisons to ozone data for present-day conditions, while H₂O is constrained by climatology as much as possible; thus no further biases would be expected from these comparisons. Uncertainties due to discrepancies in the calculated age of air compared to that derived from measurements, and of the impact of emissions on heterogeneous and polar chemistry, are difficult to evaluate at this point.

An upper limit for aircraft-produced perturbations to aerosols and gaseous exhaust products in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UT/LS) is derived using the 1992 aviation fuel tracer simulation performed by eleven global atmospheric models. Key findings are that subsonic aircraft emissions: 1) have not be responsible for the observed water vapor trends at 40°N; 2) could be a significant source of soot mass near 12 km, but not at 20 km, 3) might cause a noticeable increase in the background sulfate aerosol surface area and number densities (but not mass density) near the northern mid-latitude tropopause, and 4) could provide a global, annual mean top of the atmosphere radiative forcing up to +0.006 W/m² and −0.013 W/m² due to emitted soot and sulfur, respectively.