14 DAY TRIAL // A study published in the journal Environmental Research Letter this Thursday, September 5, documents the ecological footprint of the air transportation industry.
The paper argues that, as surprising as this may sound, flights that either leave or enter Australia and New Zealand harm the environment more than flights to and from other parts of the world do.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explain that, according to their investigations, an area located over the Pacific Ocean, at a distance of about 1,000 kilometers (621.37 miles) east of the Solomon Islands, is the world's most sensitive to aircraft emissions.
More precisely, its sensitivity to such chemical compounds is about 5 times higher than that of Europe, and 3.7 times higher than that of North America.
The scientists argue that, as several models they've pieced together show, each kilogram (2.2 pounds) of aircraft emissions that gets released in this area leads to the formation of some 15 extra kilograms (33.06 pounds) of ozone throughout the course of just 12 months.
In fact, a flight from Sydney to Bombay that passes through this area has been documented to produce a whopping 25,300 kilograms (55,776 pounds) of ozone.
“There have been many studies of the total impact of civil aviation emissions on the atmosphere, but there is very little knowledge of how individual flights change the environment,” study lead author Steven Barrett explains, as cited by The Alpha Galileo Foundation.
“Our findings show that the cleanest parts of the atmosphere exhibit the most dramatic response to new emissions. New emissions in this part of the Pacific will result in a relatively larger response from the atmosphere,” he further details.
Much like carbon dioxide, ozone is a fairly potent greenhouse gas. Its formation and destruction depends greatly on the chemical makeup of the atmosphere.
In light of these findings, the researchers recommend that high officials and people working in the air transportation industry try to improve on the ecological footprint of various flights by re-routing them around areas that have been found to be particularly sensitive to aircraft emissions.