The aviation industry has long been told of the massive amount of carbon footprint that they leave behind and its effects on the environment. However, a new study confirms that the bi-product on airplanes, particularly the white contrails that they leave behind like clouds have been a more prominent contributor to global warming. Sadly, it is set to triple in its current contributions to carbon emissions in the air by 2050.
Whenever plains create that contrail as they pass by a particular spot in the sky, people can't help but be mesmerized by cloudlike structures left behind. It is water vapor that quickly undergoes condensation around the soot from the exhaust of the plane and then freezes to form what looks like natural cirrus clouds. This process can last for a few minutes to a few hours.
These contrail clouds, however, become harmful to the environment because they are too thin to reflect sunlight, but they also contain crystals inside them that trap the heat. Compared to low-level clouds that seem to be a blanket of clouds with a cooling effect, these contrail clouds contribute to the warming of the climate.
In a study published in 2011, it was suggested that these contrail clouds are one of the most significant contributors to atmospheric warming than all the other contributors of carbon dioxide (CO2) including those produced by planes since the beginning of the aviation industry. These effects are predicted to get even worse as the aviation and air traffic becomes even more rampant.
The research team led by Ulrike Burkhardt, an atmospheric physicist who was part of the study in 2011, created a new atmospheric model that paved the way for contrail clouds to fall under their own category, distinctly separated from all the other natural clouds. This distinction allowed the team to create models of these human-made clouds from the time they are formed to the time they interact with the rest of the elements in the atmosphere.
The team primarily worked on the model the global contrail cloud in 2006, which practically lasted for a year. Taking into account the predictions that have been made as to how these clouds affect the atmospheric conditions in the future, including increasing air traffic, they were able to generate a model for 2050. They have discovered that the effect of warming comes threefold. The results of the study will be reported to Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
The study remains to be one of the pioneering studies that created a model for the 2050 prediction. The researchers looked into possible scenarios, including a potential 50% reduction on the soot produced by airplane emissions. They found that such reduction could lead to at least a 15% reduction on the overall Carbon Dioxide produced
Andrew Gettelman believes that these series of cloud concerns -- both natural and man-made clouds -- are involved in a rather complicated situation. "If people understood what contrails are and how they harm the environment, then we would have one less to worry about. It is important for the aviation industry to get their facts straight and their impact identified."
