From Popular Mechanics
June 28, 2022
Excerpt:
Black carbon in the atmosphere is like dressing Earth in a black shirt on a sunny day. It attracts and holds heat, leading to overall warming of the atmosphere. Airplanes also emit carbon pollution in this way, but there are a few key differences. First, airplanes emit respectively less carbon because they’re taking off in a way that doesn’t fight physics as much. And second, virtually all commercial airliners max out in the troposphere, one layer below the ozone-key stratosphere. (For what it’s worth, airlines are working to reduce carbon emissions and have been testing things like a hydrogen airliner and a partly electric airliner.)
For its study, NOAA used today’s baseline for carbon pollution, which is 1,000 tons of rocket soot per year. Then the team multiplied that figure by 10, which it says is a believable estimate given the recent increase in rocket launches, as well as global plans over the next few decades. At this projected rate, the amount of rocket fuel soot in the stratosphere would raise the temperature in that layer by up to 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
It’s the rising temperature that, in turn, affects the ozone layer. Well, it’s not just that. The rising temperature also affects atmospheric circulation, which is the complex overlay of wind currents that push air all around the world all the time—like jet streams or polar vortices. The rising temperature NOAA is forecasting will dampen some jet streams by as much as 3.5 percent. Both the rising temperature and the change in the jet streams will reduce ozone in global latitudes north of Houston, Texas, by as much as 4 percent.
[Note: This is only one mechanism of ozone loss that NOAA modelled.]
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