Temperature and precipitation are driving factors that affect the underlying physics used to determine the runway length under the current Federal Aviation Administration procedures in Advisory Circular (AC) 150/5325-4. Airport operators have expressed concern that current methods (which do not consider projected changes in hot day temperatures and/or frequency of wet runway conditions) may risk undersized runway lengths that are inadequate to meet service level needs. The purpose of this research study is to use future climate models to predict temperature and precipitation estimates that can be input into runway length analysis tools for prospective infrastructure projects at airports. This report outlines a review of the Fourth National Climate Assessment’s (NCA4) Climate Resilience Toolkit and an analysis of the model data from the available climate scenarios to find pertinent temperature and precipitation data. The temperature maxima, percentage of time runway would be wet, and their potential impacts on runway length requirements was evaluated under several future scenarios identified in the NCA4 through 2050. A modification to the current AC method was tested; runway length case studies were conducted for the top 30 most heavily trafficked airports in the continental United States in the two distinct climate scenarios and compared against the historical weather data.

DOT/FAA/TC-21/43 Authors: Annick Dewald and John Hansman