Contrails Worse for Climate Change

[meteorologist]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/contrails-climate/

[Clifford]

http://www.wired.com...trails-climate/

This is pretty much a non-issue.

There is no cumulative effect of the air traffic.

It is entirely a short-term effect. Shut down the air traffic, and 100% of the warming effect goes away within a few days.

The only issue might be heat buildup in the oceans, but it is minimal, especially considering the massive amounts of evaporation above the oceans. And, the majority of the flights tend to be over continents, and thus would have less affect on the oceans.

If polar warming is an issue... perhaps there would be a problem with many flights above the North Pole where there is already little moisture in the air. Especially in the winter when the clouds would not be reflecting significant amounts of sunlight. But... if one goes by "what goes up must come down"... does that produce more snow?

[WeatherRusty]

This is pretty much a non-issue.

There is no cumulative effect of the air traffic.

It is entirely a short-term effect. Shut down the air traffic, and 100% of the warming effect goes away within a few days.

The only issue might be heat buildup in the oceans, but it is minimal, especially considering the massive amounts of evaporation above the oceans. And, the majority of the flights tend to be over continents, and thus would have less affect on the oceans.

If polar warming is an issue... perhaps there would be a problem with many flights above the North Pole where there is already little moisture in the air. Especially in the winter when the clouds would not be reflecting significant amounts of sunlight. But... if one goes by "what goes up must come down"... does that produce more snow?

Black soot from jet exhaust settling over the arctic may be aiding in sea ice loss. Could be a small but non-negligible factor.

[superjames1992]

When I first opened this thread, I thought it would be the chemtrail conspiracy.

[Clifford]

Black soot from jet exhaust settling over the arctic may be aiding in sea ice loss. Could be a small but non-negligible factor.

I never see a lot of smoke behind jets, and the jet trails are very white... lots of moisture, little soot.

Thus... I'm not thinking they will be a large source of black soot deposits.

Cloud seeding may be an issue though.

North and South Ice is very different in nature.

In the South, glacial ice is created from packed snow. Thus, the more snow, the better... in a sense.

In the North, sea ice is created from frozen seawater. Snow might actually have an insulating effect. Thus, a dense snowpack on top of the sea ice might actually prevent cold atmospheric air from freezing the ice and creating thicker ice... (at least during the winter season).

I think the actual volume of snow/ice/soot created by the jet trails would be minimal though.

The impact on polar winter temperatures though, could be significant depending on the actual number of flights in the region.