Large condensation trails in the sky caused by aircraft could be eliminated by re-routing flight paths, say scientists.

 

Researchers are concerned about the climate change potential of these wispy, man-made clouds.

 

But a new study suggests that making changes to existing flight routes could curb their warming impact.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27907399

Chem Trails...... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:ph34r:

You have got to be kidding me! Contrails causing global warming? I do not think I can handle this. I'm positive now that it was a global warming "scientist" that was following me around last winter and monitoring how long he could see my breath in 22 degree weather! There should be a law against showing your breath or contrails. Hopefully we will discover another planet soon where these global warming "scientists" can go and reproduce and sing "where have all the flowers gone?".

 

Best regards,

An interesting study, be it correct or not. I couldn't really imagine this much influence on the climate, but then again, why would any university publish such studies without enough evidence? If it were someone else publishing this study, I'd be highly concerned about it being correct, though(don't want to name any, but seeing what influence the so called "experts" of certain organizations have here in Austria even though they have no clue about how things work, they do not seem trustworthy to me).

You have got to be kidding me! Contrails causing global warming? I do not think I can handle this. I'm positive now that it was a global warming "scientist" that was following me around last winter and monitoring how long he could see my breath in 22 degree weather! There should be a law against showing your breath or contrails. Hopefully we will discover another planet soon where these global warming "scientists" can go and reproduce and sing "where have all the flowers gone?".

 

Best regards,

Its no surprise you dont see the value in the study of climate change in order to protect the future of generations to come. No surprise at all. No, there are some people who only care about their own current welfare.

I have always felt that when they decided on the name Global Warming it was a mistake to use that name as it almost implys more than what it is, While the Oceans are slowly getting warmer on land we are suffering from more extreme weather events in parts of the world with to much heat and cold.

 

At the end of the day our pollution is terraforming the planet but to what extent still can only be guessed and how long it would take the planet to recover is any ones guess.

 

Im no tree hugger but we should be planting more trees to try and help offset what we are doing to the planet as there is plenty of empty land across the planet that would be good for trees.

You do realise that in the past millions of years there have been cycles of warmer and cooler periods, which have formed the Earth resulting in today's shape, fauna and flora? Just think about this: 12,000 years ago, large parts of Europe have been covered by glaciers - what do you think made them melt? I dare say it's not been our ancestors making huge campfires.

Of course, over the past two centuries there have been a significant contribution made my humans (aka Greenhouse Effect), which I do not want to make appear harmless, but that does not mean that without industrialisation we would still have the same climatic conditions we had some 250 years ago!

 

In this context it is interesting to see an aspect of aviation's contribution to climate change most of us would not have considered significant. As said above, I am very sceptical about any publication on this field, simply because there's too many interests involved, and there's too many people calling themselves experts not having any knowledge of the topic whatsoever, just because that way they can have their 15 minutes of fame. However, I highly doubt that any university would risk its reputation to publish unfounded studies, so I believe there is a lot of truth in this.

It still seems bit unrealistic to me that rerouting aircraft to reduce the formation of contrails will help anyhting here, though, because another route means more time, means more fuel consumption, means more emission of CO2 - plus passengers won't be too happy about that either. And this is one of the problems I see in many studies about any environmental influences: They often seem short-sighted and cover only one point of view.

 

I think that we should think about what we are doing, and what influence our actions can have. E.g. people complain about global warming and air pollution, yet they build and buy huge SUVs, fly all across the planet to go on vacation, buy imported fruit just because they want strawberries all year long etc. Those things are connected, and if we start to be just a little more conscious about that, we can slow down that process of climate change. However, we need to be aware that we will not see an immediate reaction, neither can we stop a perfectly natural process, and even though it may seem sad at the first glance that we humans are not as important as we'd like us to be, mankind is not responsible for everything that's going on on this planet. Not every endangered breed is dying because of human actions (just think of dinosaurs), there are factors involved that man simply cannot control!

 

Best regards,

You do realise that in the past millions of years there have been cycles of warmer and cooler periods, which have formed the Earth resulting in today's shape, fauna and flora?

 

Extremely well said and I wholeheartedly agree.

Edited June 20, 201411 yr by n4gix
Please do not quote the entire post just to add one line!

Next they will want to change their routing on the fly...ATC will love that.

You do realise that in the past millions of years there have been cycles of warmer and cooler periods, which have formed the Earth resulting in today's shape, fauna and flora? Just think about this: 12,000 years ago, large parts of Europe have been covered by glaciers - what do you think made them melt? I dare say it's not been our ancestors making huge campfires.

Of course, over the past two centuries there have been a significant contribution made my humans (aka Greenhouse Effect), which I do not want to make appear harmless, but that does not mean that without industrialisation we would still have the same climatic conditions we had some 250 years ago!

 

In this context it is interesting to see an aspect of aviation's contribution to climate change most of us would not have considered significant. As said above, I am very sceptical about any publication on this field, simply because there's too many interests involved, and there's too many people calling themselves experts not having any knowledge of the topic whatsoever, just because that way they can have their 15 minutes of fame. However, I highly doubt that any university would risk its reputation to publish unfounded studies, so I believe there is a lot of truth in this.

It still seems bit unrealistic to me that rerouting aircraft to reduce the formation of contrails will help anyhting here, though, because another route means more time, means more fuel consumption, means more emission of CO2 - plus passengers won't be too happy about that either. And this is one of the problems I see in many studies about any environmental influences: They often seem short-sighted and cover only one point of view.

 

I think that we should think about what we are doing, and what influence our actions can have. E.g. people complain about global warming and air pollution, yet they build and buy huge SUVs, fly all across the planet to go on vacation, buy imported fruit just because they want strawberries all year long etc. Those things are connected, and if we start to be just a little more conscious about that, we can slow down that process of climate change. However, we need to be aware that we will not see an immediate reaction, neither can we stop a perfectly natural process, and even though it may seem sad at the first glance that we humans are not as important as we'd like us to be, mankind is not responsible for everything that's going on on this planet. Not every endangered breed is dying because of human actions (just think of dinosaurs), there are factors involved that man simply cannot control!

 

Best regards,

Well stated Florian! Totally agree!

 

Best regards,

Wait just a minute!  Here is a little fact the 'warm' people left out. The fact that a contrail also casts a shadow or blocks sunlight during the day would contribute to cooling which would offset any heating. OMG! Al Gore was right when back in the seventies he said that the planet was going to freeze over solid within ten to fifteen years. As Jim wrote to which I agree fully, it was extremely difficult to take global warming very serious last winter and early spring. It was brutal in this area. I guess that is why it went from global freeze to global warm to global change. The bothersome part is that the people pushing this ignore any facts to the contrary and are determined to blame it on something human related by cherry picking the numbers so they can tax it / us. They say it is going to get colder - it gets warmer. They say it is going to get warmer - it gets colder. Why in the world should we ever doubt them?

 

Here are a few quick and simple facts being ignored;

 

When newly exposed limestone is exposed to water it gives off carbon dioxide at the surface. The Himalayan mountains are in large part limestone and this fresh limestone is giving off a massive amount of carbon dioxide. So do volcanic eruptions.

 

Sunspot activity has a very large effect on our climate. Lower sunspot activity means the sun radiates less energy, we cool a bit, higher sunspot activity and the sun radiates more energy a we warm a bit. The sun has gone through a unusually long period of low sunspot activity recently and activity has only just began to rise. That perfectly explains the slightly cooler temperatures we are really experiencing and the warming we are starting to experience. The suns radiation drives our weather patterns and ocean currents and water temperature which also affect weather patterns.

 

The earth is, in geological terms still exiting from the last ice age which began to end approximately 14,000 years ago ( a short time in geologic terms ). It should be getting slightly warmer - slowly, just as we are seeing or will see.

 

Carbon Dioxide is not the evil that the 'warmest' types would have us believe. Plant life which gives us our food and oxygen need it for photosynthesis. Healthier and faster growing plants equal more food and oxygen for us. Want to do something cheap and realistic about CO2? Plant more trees!

 

The earth has and will continue to change whether it is to our benefit or not. The Amazon basin was at one time a desert and the Sahara desert was at one time a lush green environment and mankind certainly had no hand in those transformations.

 

 

 

 

Hopefully we will discover another planet soon where these global warming "scientists" can go and reproduce and sing "where have all the flowers gone?".

 

In a Galaxy far far away!                                              . . . . . . . while they are going there maybe we could tax them for polluting outer space. Scratch that, they might turn around and come back just to pay their bill.    :Big Grin:

 

 

 

Regards,

Very interesting post, Mel, particularly this part (not to say that the rest isn't interesting, but this is something really new to me):

 

The Himalayan mountains are in large part limestone and this fresh limestone is giving off a massive amount of carbon dioxide.

I'd never expect that I would actually learn new things about geology in an aviation forum, but you never know - I always thought that the Himalayas consist predominantly of metamorphic rock.

Well said Mel- For an an interesting and very recent paper on the relationship of pollution particulates  & clouds to global cooling - read:

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2014/06/new-paper-shows-ipcc-underestimates.html

 

Time to buy a new snow shovel?

january

Reading all this I found out one thing for certain: It sure produces a lot of hot air.

 

Kind regards,

This has already been debunked - after 9/11 and all the aircraft were grounded, temps rose an average 3 degrees C. Proven. Far from causing it, it is preventing it.

 

MMGW doesn't exist - it is political (censored) to avoid the fact we are running out of oil. Watch now as I get accused of being a paid "Big Oil" shill...

 

When USA overtakes ME as the worlds largest oil producer, you can't deny facts.

 

Best regards,

Robin.