Warning: Some posts on this platform may contain adult material intended for mature audiences only. Viewer discretion is advised. By clicking ‘Continue’, you confirm that you are 18 years or older and consent to viewing explicit content.
If the conditions are suitable, emissions of soot and water vapour can trigger the formation of contrails (Kärcher 2018), which can spread to form extensive contrail-cirrus cloud coverage. Such cloud coverage is estimated to have a combined ERF that is about 57% of the current net ERF of global aviation (Lee et al. 2021), although a comparison of cirrus cloud observations under pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic conditions suggest that this forcing could be smaller (Digby et al. 2021). Additional effects from aviation from aerosol-cloud interactions on high-level ice clouds through soot (Chen and Gettelman 2013; Zhou and Penner 2014; Penner et al. 2018), and lower-level warm clouds through sulphur (Righi et al. 2013; Kapadia et al. 2016) are highly uncertain, with no best estimates available (Lee et al. 2021).
The 2 papers listed which quantify the effect:
Lee, D.S. et al., 2021: The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018. Atmos. Environ. , 244, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2020.117834. Link to paper
Digby, R.A.R., N.P. Gillett, A.H. Monahan, and J.N.S. Cole, 2021: An Observational Constraint on Aviation-Induced Cirrus From the COVID-19-Induced Flight Disruption. Geophys. Res. Lett. , 48(20) , e2021GL095882-e2021GL095882, doi:10.1029/2021GL095882. Link to paper
How would contrails cause global warming? They’re just condensation.
From the Report, Chapter 10.5.2:
The 2 papers listed which quantify the effect:
Thanks, I had no idea. I guess the crazy people from the 90’s complaining about contrails weren’t completely off-base about them being harmful.