MOGUNTIA

Air pollution deriving from road traffic and aviation is the subject of this lesson. The most relevant traffic induced substance is NO x, which is a combination of NO, nitrogen oxide and NO 2, nitrogen dioxide. NO x has different lifetimes depending on altitude - the higher the longer but generally is "short lived" compared to e.g. ozone... The exercises (model results) presented here are based on simplified model simulations of the global distribution of NO x and its chemical product O 3 emitted (a) at ground level (road traffic) and (b) at subsonic flight altitude (air traffic). In nature every NO x molecule emitted causes the production of 10-50 ozone molecules (depending on latitude and altitude) before it is removed from the air primarily by the rain. In the model this mechanism is parameterised for this study in a way that emissions of ozone are scaled to the emissions of aircraft-NO x. This is acceptable as a first guess, because NO x due to its short lifetime cannot travel far..