Impact of Transport on Climate

Authors

Univ.-Prof. Dr. R. Sausen, Dr. J. Hendricks, DLR, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen

Year

2006

Print Info

Fortschritt-Berichte VDI, Reihe 12, Nr. 622

Summary

The global mean near surface air temperature is rising, associated with many other climate changes. Most probably, a large part of the observed climate change is anthropogenic. Transport significantly contributes to climate change. About 25% of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and cement production are from transport, where road transport is responsible for the by far largest fraction. Beyond the emission of longlived greenhouse gases, such as CO2, transport contributes to climate change by emitting precursors of secondary greenhouse gases (e.g., ozone), by emitting aerosols or aerosol precursors, and by modifying cloud cover and cloud optical properties. Their impacts on climate still lacks a consistent quantification, which makes is difficult include the effects beyond longlived greenhouse gases into emission trading. Doing this quantification becomes more and more important as transport is expected to grow faster than other industrial sectors.

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