A Large-Eddy Simulation Study of Contrail Ice Number Formation

Abstract

Ice crystal number is a critical ingredient in the potential climate impact of persistent contrails and contrail-induced cirrus. We perform an extensive set of large-eddy simulations (LES) of ice nucleation and growth within aircraft exhaust jets with an emphasis on assessing the importance of detailed plume mixing on the effective ice-number emission index (EIiceno) produced for different conditions. Parameter variations considered include ambient temperature, pressure, and humidity; initial aerosol origin (exhaust or ambient), number, and properties; and aircraft engine size. The LES are performed in a temporal representation with binned microphysics including the basics of activation of underlying aerosol, droplet growth, and freezing. We find that a box-model approach reproduces EIiceno from LES well for sufficiently low aerosol numbers or when crystal production is predominantly on ambient aerosol. For larger exhaust aerosol number the box model generally overestimates EIiceno and can underestimate the fraction from ultrafine aerosol. The effects of different parameters on EIiceno can largely be understood with simpler analytic models that are formulated in low and high aerosol-number limits. The simulations highlight the potential importance of “cold” contrails, ambient ultrafine aerosols, crystal loss due to competition between different-sized crystals, and limitations on reducing EIiceno. We find EIiceno insensitive to engine size for lower aerosol numbers, but decreasing with increasing engine size for higher aerosol numbers. Temporal versus spatial representations for jet LES are compared in an appendix.