Travelling by Car Increases Global Temperatures More Than Travelling by Plane (But Only in the Long Term)
20 September 2010
According to the results of the QUANTIFY (Quantifying the climate impact of global and European transport systems) project, published in the journal of Environmental Science & Technology, car travel increases global temperatures more than by making the same long-distance journey by air.
This is true, however, only in the long term; indeed in the short run travelling by air has a larger adverse climate impact because airplanes strongly affect short-lived warming processes at high altitudes. On the contrary, car travel emits more carbon dioxide than air travel per passenger mile. As carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere longer than the other gases, cars have a more harmful impact on climate change in the long term.
For the first time, researchers, use a collection of climate chemistry models to consider the climate effects of all long- and short-lived gases, aerosols and cloud effects, not just carbon dioxide, resulting from worldwide transport.
Passenger trains and buses cause four to five times less impact than car travel for every kilometre a passenger travels.
The project, founded by the European Commission within the 6th Research Framework Programme, involved 17 European countries, China, U.S.A. and India to study the impacts on global warming of different means of transport.

For further information on QUANTIFY project see:"
 

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