Plane Contrails Have a Surprising Effect on Global Warming

Of the varied conspiracy theories regarding contrails—you know, chemtrails—one stands out for being especially wrong: the belief that the plane-made clouds are chemicals the government is secretly spraying to battle climate change, to the peril of those on the ground. First, contrails are nothing but the incidental result of mixing hot, water-vapor-filled jet engine exhaust with cold air. Second, the government has nothing to do with them. Most important, they’re not battling climate change. They’re accelerating it.

Just 2 percent of flights are responsible for 80 percent
of the atmospheric disturbance caused by contrails.

Recent studies have found that contrails (a portmanteau of condensation and trails) may contribute as much as or more than all flights to the warming of the planet.

You may think of contrails as tiny lines against a vast sky, but in certain conditions, they can be a lot more. They can stretch tens of miles. Wind can spread them out. They can linger for hours. So as plane after plane runs the same route through the air, new and old contrails mingle and accumulate, forming airborne mosh pits of ice cloud. Scientists call these “contrail cirrus”—high-altitude clouds that can spread over hundreds of square miles. And they’re likely to become more of a problem: One study found that as air traffic increases, the heat-trapping effect of contrail cirrus in 2050 could be three times greater than it was in 2006. Clouds trap heat coming off the earth that would otherwise head for space, making them the biggest variable in the planet’s temperature and climate, according to NASA.

Read the story from Wired by Alex Davies - “Plane Contrails Have a Surprising Effect on Global Warming.”