Impact of hydrogen on atmosphere and climate
About
Due to the phasing out of fossil fuels, hydrogen (H2) is becoming increasingly important. The energetic use of H2 only produces water, but leakages are unavoidable in the large-scale use of hydrogen. We are investigating their impact on the atmosphere and climate.
For some time now, there have been concerns that the additional water vapor caused by leaks in a global hydrogen economy promotes the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) and thus significantly increases polar ozone depletion. This could also be refuted with the help of studies at ICE-4 (Vogel et al., 2012).
Research Topics
Research at ICE-4 continues to investigate the impact of possible hydrogen leakage on the atmosphere and the climate. Hydrogen does not have a direct effect on the climate, but there is an indirect effect on the climate. The oxidation of H2 with OH means that less OH is available for the decomposition of other trace gases that are harmful to the climate, such as methane (CH4). This is of course offset by the significantly more positive effects of reducing the use of fossil fuels.
It is planned to use our Lagrangian model CLaMS to investigate these effects in more detail. This model, developed at ICE-4, is particularly well suited to simulating the distribution of trace gases at transport barriers, especially water vapor in the lower stratosphere (Charlesworth et al., 2023), which is important in this context.
It is also planned to extend our balloon soundings, which reach up to an altitude of around 30 km, to include the measurement of H2. For this purpose, the “AirCore” measurement method is to be used, in which air samples are taken on a balloon sounding using a long, thin cylinder and then analyzed in the laboratory. At present, there are still very few observations of the vertical profile of H2.
Selection of ICE-4 publications
- Vogel, B., T. Feck, and J.-U. Grooß, and M. Riese, Impact of a possible future global hydrogen econoy on Arctic stratospheric ozone loss, Energy and Environmental Science, 5, 6445-6452, doi:10.1039/C2EE03181G, 2012.
- Charlesworth, E., Ploeger, F., Birner, T., Baikhadzhaev, R., Abalos, M., Abraham, N.L., Akiyoshi, H., Bekki, S., Dennison, F., Jöckel, P., Keeble, J., Kinnison, D., Morgenstern, O., Plummer, D., Rozanov, E., Strode, S., Zeng, G., Egorova, T., Riese, M., Stratospheric water vapor affecting atmospheric circulation , NATURE Communications, 14 doi:10.1038/s41467-023-39559-2, 2023