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Aviation History
1975
1975 - 0658.PDF
584 AIR TRANSPORT CIAP assessed The "Climatic Impact Assessment Program—a report of findings" published by the US Department of Transporta tion recently deals with opinions based on an expenditure of $40 million. It is neither impressive nor informative, according to Prof R. S. Scorer, professor of theoretical mechanics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology. THE ONLY conclusion of value in the Climatic Impact Assessment Program (CIAP) report can be sum marised in 16 words, "There will be no detectable effect of flying SSTs in the stratosphere in the foreseeable future." The rest is pompous claptrap. Much of it is a statement of what is already commonplace knowledge about the atmosphere (see Flight for January 30, page 125). Where something is not known, the report calls for expensive research to find it out and presents the results of elaborate calculations without giving details of the assumptions made. In particular it does not say how they differ from those used to produce the earlier predictions of calamity following the destruction of the ozone in the stratosphere. The new calculations of the percentage of ozone that would be destroyed by the operation of various fleets of aircraft, and presented in the report, "can be from one-third of to twice the values shown." Such preci sion is quite impossible, and the real meaning of the state ment is that variations of that magnitude would almost certainly occur if all the assumptions were correct. Of earlier calculations it says "the modelling of strato spheric dynamics was primitive"; this is a misleading understatement because the models were grossly in error and obviously so. A scare was created and when the errors were pointed out those who wanted a scare argued that in a situation in which, "experts disagree" we ought to expect the worst until proved otherwise. The result has been that instead of allowing the super sonic transport itself to do the monitoring necessary for detailed work in the future, a certain amount of hurried sampling has been carried out. On a quite inadequate basis the report now makes suggestions about stratospheric air quality standards that should be enforced. To convert these hurried and ignorant suggestions into precise exhaust requirements, when even the numbers of aircraft are quite uncertain, is ludicrous; but that is what the CIAP report suggests. The logic of the report is confused through the use of emotive words and the non-specialist can be beguiled by its pretensions. It implies, for example, that "key con stituents" of the atmosphere have been measured, some for the first time. The word "key" is redundant. The report claims to be concerned "only with the science, leaving to others the value judgments, policy recommendations and decisions." It then goes on to discuss "potentially serious .. . chains of events" (i.e., suggested possible events). It does not distinguish between those which would be dan gerous if certain events took place and those which would FLIGHT International, 10 April 1975 certainly happen, and cause danger, if exhaust emissions rose to the necessary (but actually extremely unlikely) level. "Undesirable consequences can be fully controlled by limiting the injection of pollutants," says the report, as if we were morons, and adds "upper bounds on the magni tude of effects can be established." It would be easy to agree to this, except that the whole issue turns on the safety margin to be asked for. So it is no help to say "on the upper-bounds hypothesis regulatory measures could be determined . . ." All the difficult questions are avoided because they cannot yet be answered. Bureaucratic dreams seem to play havoc with reality in the minds of the authors of the CIAP report. Man is only just beginning to explore the stratosphere and it is far too early to start laying down detailed rules. Many changes of course will have to be made as know ledge grows, technology develops and experience is gained, and sensible people expect that. The course should be determined by aims, and not by wild fears. The CIAP report discusses an "upper bound" to the incidence of non-melanomic skin cancer. This is a form of sunburn to which blond Americans and Australians are prone if they expose themselves to too much sunshine in low latitudes (for example, Texas and Queensland). The connection with ozone is not substantiated in any detail and if it is to be avoided there is a lot that could be done on the ground to decrease from the present 500,000 the number of American sufferers. On the basis of sunburn and hypothetical climatic effects of sulphur dioxide, limits are suggested for the sulphur content of fuel and the level of nitrogen oxides in the exhaust. But it is far too early to do more than discuss the issues. Detailed regulations are out of place. Any manufacturer or operator will watch how knowledge develops and plan accordingly, and much more effectively than a committee of outsiders, who seem in this case to think that the accuracy of the detecting instruments is what we need to improve. They hope to be able to measure the effect of Concorde in about ten years' time. Natural variations will be 100 times as big as the instrument errors they hope for by then and it would require very many decades to detect any effect at that level of sensitivity, other things remaining equal. But other things will not remain equal. The amount of agriculture supported by adding nitrogen as fertiliser, whether organic or inorganic, could well change so as to correspond, through the nitrogen cycle, with a fleet of 4,000 Concordes, and may already have done so. The eruption of a few volcanoes could overwhelm anything aircraft could do to climate. Meanwhile, concern for sunburn sufferers should be put in perspective. Road accidents will claim 100,000 dead this year; smoking diseases at least half a million, starva tion perhaps several hundred million. When one considers realistically the probable number of SSTs in service in the next 20 years, and the strides made This Aeroflot Tu-I54A, usually regarded as a medium-range aircraft, is used on a regular Moscow-Odessa-Cairo-Nairobi service, where its high thrust/weight ratio and performance are advantages ^mm^^^mmii^M
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