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273 | 273 | this tool enables to compute the footprint of a larger number of travels, |
274 | 274 | making some assumptions, e.g. to model connecting flights. |
275 | 275 | |
276 | - For short distance travels, the CO<sub>2</sub> footprint associated with trains | |
277 | - is calculated and added to the air travel footprint. | |
276 | + #For short distance travels, the CO<sub>2</sub> footprint associated with trains | |
277 | + #is calculated and added to the air travel footprint. | |
278 | 278 | |
279 | 279 | ### Original Motivation |
280 | 280 | |
... | ... | @@ -291,17 +291,7 @@ home: |
291 | 291 | Carrying scientific research requires traveling all across the world, |
292 | 292 | but time has come to critically look at the way we carry research, |
293 | 293 | with the aim of raising awareness and reducing our environmental impact, |
294 | - whenever possible. | |
295 | - In this context, it is worth looking at what the carbon footprint | |
296 | - of travels associated with the development of a large project, | |
297 | - such as the Athena X-ray Integral Field Unit, | |
298 | - is and implement actions to reduce it. | |
299 | - The consortium involved in the development of the X-ray Integral Field Unit | |
300 | - for the flagship Athena Space X-ray observatory of the European Space Agency | |
301 | - involves currently 13 countries, 11 in Europe plus Japan and the United States. | |
302 | - The amount of traveling required for the project is necessarily large. | |
303 | - As PI of the X-IFU, my original motivation was to estimate what large meant, | |
304 | - as an input to discussing actions to reduce our footprint with the members of the consortium. | |
294 | + whenever possible. | |
305 | 295 | |
306 | 296 | - title: Which data are used? |
307 | 297 | content: | |
... | ... | @@ -326,20 +316,19 @@ home: |
326 | 316 | although often discrepancies are noticed in some communications, |
327 | 317 | more particularly for long distance flights. |
328 | 318 | |
329 | - Relying on one calculator is therefore not possible. | |
330 | - This is why I am computing estimates based on different methods. | |
331 | - This tool thus enables to compute your travel carbon footprint (for round trips), | |
332 | - based on data provided by 4 independent state-of-the-art emission calculators: | |
319 | + Relying on one calculator is therefore not possible. This tool thus enables to compute your travel carbon footprint (for round trips), | |
320 | + based on data provided by 6 independent state-of-the-art emission calculators: | |
333 | 321 | |
334 | 322 | 1. the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), |
335 | 323 | 2. the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), |
336 | - 3. the ATMOSFAIR German Carbon offsetting company, and finally | |
337 | - 4. the French Environment & Energy Management Agency (ADEME). | |
324 | + 3. the ATMOSFAIR German Carbon offsetting company, | |
325 | + 4. the French Environment & Energy Management Agency (ADEME) | |
326 | + 5. the data provided on the KLM website to introduce their CO2 compensation service (KLM) | |
327 | + 6. the MyClimate Carbon offseting company (used by Lufthansa) | |
338 | 328 | |
339 | - ICAO, DEFRA and ATMOSFAIR have their methodology very well described | |
329 | + ICAO, DEFRA and MyClimate, ATMOSFAIR have their methodology very well described | |
340 | 330 | (see resources section below). |
341 | 331 | |
342 | - I have enquired to ADEME to get more about their methodology. | |
343 | 332 | ADEME and DEFRA provide mean emission factors as a function of flight distance. |
344 | 333 | ADEME considers seat capacity and DEFRA gives emission factors |
345 | 334 | as a function of seat type (from economy to first class seat). |
... | ... | @@ -352,56 +341,29 @@ home: |
352 | 341 | |
353 | 342 | - title: How does this tool work? |
354 | 343 | content: | |
355 | - For estimating your own travel footprint, | |
356 | - the only thing you have to provide is an excel file | |
357 | - which contains only the different final destinations that you traveled to, | |
358 | - while the main city (origin) is entered on the form below. | |
359 | - For estimating the travel footprint of a conference, | |
360 | - you must provide the city from which each participant departs from | |
361 | - and enter the host city of the conference in the form below. | |
362 | - | |
363 | - The tool then decodes the list of cities in the input excel sheet | |
364 | - (please check the spelling when filling it up), | |
365 | - and finds the closest airport within 100 km | |
366 | - (large airport first and and if no large airports exists, it finds a medium one) | |
367 | - using the google geolocator. | |
368 | - This returns the longitude and latitude of the closest airport. | |
369 | - Cities that cannot be located are ignored from the computation. | |
370 | - To resolve ambiguity between cities of similar names (e.g. Cambridge), | |
371 | - I require the name of the country. | |
372 | - | |
373 | - From the longitude and latitude of two airports | |
374 | - (e.g. the host city of a conference and the departing city of an attendee), | |
375 | - the tool computes the great circle distance (GCD). | |
376 | - This is the shortest path a plane can follow. | |
377 | - Short trips (e.g. shorter than 300 km) are accounted by trains. | |
378 | - Traveling between cities often involve connexions. | |
379 | - Here I consider a 5% increase of the GCD, as a mean value, | |
380 | - understanding that it may be less on long flights and more on shorter flights. | |
381 | - | |
382 | - The emission factors of DEFRA include a 8% uplift to account for the fact that planes, | |
383 | - even during direct flight, do not strictly follow the shortest path, | |
344 | + The tool starts by decoding the origin cities listed in the form, and geolocate them. | |
345 | + It then decodes the destination cities and geolocate them as well. | |
346 | + | |
347 | + Cities that cannot be located are ignored from the computation. To resolve ambiguity | |
348 | + between cities of similar names (e.g. Cambridge), the name of the country is required. | |
349 | + | |
350 | + From the longitude and lattitude of the origin and destination cities, the great | |
351 | + circle distance is computed. This is the shortest path a plane can follow. However, | |
352 | + traveling between cities often involves connexion. A 5% increase of the great circle | |
353 | + distance is considered as a mean value. | |
354 | + | |
355 | + DEFRA, ICAO, Atmosfair and MyClimate include uplift factors to account for the fact | |
356 | + than planes, even during direct flight, do not strictly follow the shortest path, | |
384 | 357 | e.g. to avoid bad weather conditions. |
385 | - ICAO adds some constants depending on the flight distance: | |
386 | - the GCD correction factor is 50 km for GCD less than to 550 km, | |
387 | - 100 km for GCD between 550 and 5500 km, and 125 km for for GCD above 5500 km. | |
388 | - ATMOSFAIR adds a systematic 50 km to the GCD. | |
389 | - For ADEME, there is no indication on whether any GCD correction applies, | |
390 | - so I will assume the ICAO GCD correction. | |
391 | 358 | |
392 | 359 | CO<sub>2</sub> emissions per passenger take into consideration the load factor |
393 | 360 | and are based only on passenger operations |
394 | 361 | (i.e. fuel burn associated with belly freight is not charged to the passenger). |
362 | + From the travel distance, and the emission coefficients, the tool computes the amount | |
363 | + of CO2eq generated by each flight. The user can select one or more data providers, | |
364 | + and a mean value will be reported if more than one provider is considered. | |
395 | 365 | |
396 | - Given the corrected GCD so computed, | |
397 | - I use either the mean emission coefficients or the linear functions | |
398 | - fitting the data of the on-line calculators. | |
399 | - Note that there are no error bars on the estimates and very little literature on the topic. | |
400 | - Only ATMOSFAIR returns whenever available, | |
401 | - the data from different possible flights, | |
402 | - considering different airlines. | |
403 | - It also returns the the average over all airlines. | |
404 | - | |
366 | + | |
405 | 367 | # Second row of "blocks" |
406 | 368 | - blocks: |
407 | 369 | |
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426 | 388 | ICAO, on the other hand does not include a multiplier, |
427 | 389 | waiting for the scientific community to settle on a value. |
428 | 390 | So 1.9 seems reasonable, but keep in mind that it comes with some uncertainty. |
429 | - You may want to select the ATMOSFAIR forcing index, | |
430 | - instead of the 1.9 constant. | |
431 | - The multiplier reaches about 2.8 for flights longer than 5000 km. | |
432 | 391 | |
433 | 392 | - title: Which seat category are you considering? |
434 | 393 | content: | |
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441 | 400 | - title: What about uncertainties? |
442 | 401 | content: | |
443 | 402 | I believe that each estimate has an uncertainty between 10 and 25% |
444 | - (really this is a best guess, and not substantiated by any statistical analysis and it could be more probably), | |
445 | - the uncertainty being smaller for shorter flights for which there are more data. | |
403 | + (really this is a best guess, and not substantiated by any statistical analysis and it could be more probably). | |
446 | 404 | I would therefore refrain from using the numbers derived as absolute values. |
447 | - The results given should be considered indicative, although likely in the right ball park, | |
448 | - for the assumptions that I make, and the approximation I use, | |
449 | - e.g. in fitting ICAO and ATMOSFAIR data. | |
450 | - For flights of average distance less than a few thousands kilometers, | |
451 | - the results agree reasonably well, between the various estimators, | |
452 | - which is a good sign. | |
453 | 405 | Larger differences are found when long distance flights are considered. |
454 | 406 | In all cases, the estimates can be used for relative comparisons. |
455 | 407 | |
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478 | 430 | Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile |
479 | 431 | - [ICAO](https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/carbonoffset/pages/default.aspx) |
480 | 432 | Carbon Emissions Calculator |
433 | + - [KLM data] (https://www.klm.com/travel/nl_en/prepare_for_travel/fly_co2_neutral/all_about_sustainable_travel/index.htm) | |
434 | + - [MyClimate] (https://www.myclimate.org) | |
481 | 435 | - L. Hackel [travel footprint calculator](https://lhackel.shinyapps.io/travel_footprint/) |
482 | 436 | based on DEFRA emission factors |
483 | 437 | ... | ... |