Cheap Fix Floated For Plane Vapor's Climate Damage (bbc.co.uk)
- Reference: 0175461735
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/11/13/1125259/cheap-fix-floated-for-plane-vapors-climate-damage
- Source link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz7wp777780o
> The climate-damaging vapors left behind by jet planes could be easily tackled, aviation experts say, with a new study suggesting they could be eliminated for a few pounds per flight. Jet condensation trails, or contrails, have spawned wild conspiracy theories alleging mind control and the spreading of disease, but scientists say the real problem is their warming effect.
>
> "They create an artificial layer of clouds, which traps the heat from the Earth that's trying to escape to outer space," said Carlos Lopez de la Osa, from the Transport & Environment campaign group, which has carried out a new study on the solutions to contrails. "The scale of the warming that's associated with them is roughly having a similar impact to that of aviation carbon emissions."
>
> Tweaking the flight paths of a handful of aircraft [2]could reduce contrail warming by more than half by 2040 , at a cost of less than $5.1 per flight. Geography and a flight's latitude have a strong influence on whether a contrail is warming. Time of day also influences the climate effects of contrails. Those formed by evening and night flights have the largest warming contribution. Seasonality is also important -- the most warming contrails tend to occur in winter. "Planes are already flying around thunderstorms and turbulence areas," Mr Lopez de la Osa said. "We will need to add one more constraint to flight planning, which is avoiding areas of contrail formation."
[1] https://slashdot.org/~AmiMoJo
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz7wp777780o
Maybe the insurance industry should fund this (Score:2)
Reducing damage from catastrophic flooding and storms even a little bit would make it a very, very good investment.
Re: (Score:2)
It's much easier for them to simply void flood coverage for anybody living in some areas which is actually what they do. "Acts of God" aren't usually covered either.
Re: (Score:2)
Didn't we just read in June 2023 on science.(org?com?) how the trails left behind by sulfur from ships were reflecting sunlight back into space, reducing warming? Why would contrails be any different?
Re: (Score:2)
> Didn't we just read in June 2023 on science.(org?com?) how the trails left behind by sulfur from ships were reflecting sunlight back into space, reducing warming? Why would contrails be any different?
Because aircraft don't burn diesel oil.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they burn kerosene, which you'd think would have a similar impact.
Re: (Score:2)
Trails from planes do the same.
But from TFS, there isn't just one action taking place. As noted, the artificial clouds are trapping in surface heat at night, compared to reflecting light in the day.
Re: (Score:2)
> Reducing damage from catastrophic flooding and storms even a little bit would make it a very, very good investment.
The Insurance Industry? Seriously?
The Insurance Industry would love to sell forest fire insurance to people who live in the middle of deserts. No risk there, right? So the perfect money-making market.
Where I'm at... (Score:2)
Along one of the major routes, there are days where the entire sky can be "clouded" solely due to contrails. I have counted as many as 40 in the sky at one time. Go ahead and try and tell me those don't have climate effects.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember reading something a few years ago, at work so can't really Google it, that scientists did some experiments during that time after 9/11 when planes were grounded and compared local weather / temperature patterns against similar periods / patterns when planes were in the air flying around and did see a difference in the local climate / air quality.
Again, at work, so I don't have much time to go look up what they'd found - I just remember that they did find something.
Re:Where I'm at... (Score:4, Informative)
and did see a difference in the local climate / air quality.
You may have been thinking about the initial study which has now been questioned and [1]probably is not correct [bbc.co.uk].
> The problem here is that air traffic never actually stops. But for three days after 9/11, that's exactly what happened when all commercial flights were grounded. A team led by David J Travis of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater took the necessary measurements, crunched the data and published the findings in the journal Nature.
>
> The result? DTR did indeed widen by a full 1ÂC during those three days, in distinct contrast to the three days before the grounding and the three days after flights resumed.
>
> But now a US study by Dr Gang Hong of Texas A&M University has found that DTR variations of 1ÂC during September aren't all that unusual and that the change in 2001 was probably attributable to low cloud cover. Elsewhere, a team at Leeds University, working with the Met Office Hadley Centre, ran contrails through its climate models and found that you'd need about 200 times the quantity of flights over America to produce a significant effect on DTR.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/climatechange/2009/05/911_contrails_study_challenged.html
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, I was like the prev poster remembering this study.
Still, the awareness to take such a catastrophe and be able to harness it for a study you literally couldn't do otherwise was some A+ level initiative.
Re: (Score:2)
> I have counted as many as 40 in the sky at one time.
That's nothing. Sometimes I look up and the entire sky is cloudy.
This makes no sense (Score:4, Interesting)
Contrails moderate day/night temperature swings. Presumably while they may insulate at night, they're increasing albedo during the day.
This effect was noted both after 9/11 and during COVID.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I was gonna say this as well. The only caveat I can see is that the albedo effect is only active during daylight hours. But the heat trapping effect is always happening. So it should be a net positive in terms of heat trapping.
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently you're guilty of my sin - I failed to RTFA.
So 'day contrails good, night contrails bad' is already noted.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't expect people to read the article but the summary clearly states: " Time of day also influences the climate effects of contrails. Those formed by evening and night flights have the largest warming contribution."
Re: (Score:2)
Well they should charge more for flights at night, since there is the extra cost in powering all those runway lights.
It makes sense if you read the article (Score:2)
> Presumably while they may insulate at night, they're increasing albedo during the day.
They insultate during both night AND day. The difference is that during the day this is offset by the increased albedo reflecting the incoming heat from the sun which is obviously not there at night. This is is why, if you read the article (yes I know, it's Slashdot), it says that the plan to mitigate them is to have fewer flights during the evening and night.
This will clearly not work for long-haul, east-west flights i.e. trans-atlantic, trans-pacific etc. due to time zone difference making it all but
Re: This makes no sense (Score:2)
After 9 11 when all civilian aircraft were grounded, average temps over the US went UP. That doesnt square with the contrail overall warming theory.
Re: (Score:2)
nothing intelligent squares with their climate theories cuz it's all bunkum
How does the gain compare (Score:2)
To the effect of the additional fuel burned to alter the routes?
Dupe from 2023 (Score:2)
[1]https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/14/1256252/contrails-cause-57-of-a-planes-climate-impact-can-that-be-changed
A Question ... (Score:2)
When shipping [1]switched to cleaner low sulfur fuel [nature.com], that caused more radiative warming.
What are the differences in mechanism for water vapor different from sulfur dioxide?
Anyone on this site knows?
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01442-3
Re: (Score:1)
Sulfur just stays up there longer, but it's also highly toxic and causes acid rain. I'm sure we could figure out how to make the trails stick longer with something significantly less poisonous.
How much will this impact profits? (Score:2)
Let's ask the one and only question that truly matters: How much will this impact profits for those flights affected? If it's more than a penny per flight, this plan is right out the window before it was even fully conceptualized. That's the problem with all climate driven changes. If they impact profits, at all, they are inconceivable to the corporations controlling actual policy. There shall be no negative impact on profitability. Planet be damned.
most warming contrails tend to occur in winter? (Score:2)
Excuse me! Excuse me. I'm a Canadian. Could we keep those please? In fact, how about you guys tweak your models to increase the warming contrails over Canada in winter?
Re: (Score:2)
> yeah, its a few wispy contrails affecting the global climate of course it is.. nothing to do with the sun's cycles / output.
Since we measure the sun's cycles, and measure the sun's output, and know that the (very small) variance doesn't account for the observed effects: yes.
Uh, contrails aren't chemtrails? (Score:2)
I'm not really a "tinfoil" type... but as long as I remember the idea being floated out there? There was a big deal made about a distinction between your average airplane contrail and what they claimed was a chemtrail instead.
If you want to argue that they're flat out wrong, and planes are simply not ever purposely dumping/spraying chemicals out the back while flying -- that's fine. But I'd say it's absolutely something possible to do and really has little or nothing to do with jet condensation trails, othe
Doomed to fail (Score:2)
This idea will obviously go no further because there's an international conspiracy of lizard people with Jewish space lasers controlling everyone's minds with G5 chips that were injected in the COVID-19 vaccines. They don't want us to know the truth!!!
A better idea (Score:2)
Planes are so weight-sensitive that any battery tech we have or can even conceive of that uses metals won't work, even if we had nuclear fusion working to charge them for nearly free. However, jet fuel uses oxygen and there are working prototypes of batteries that are extremely energy dense because they require oxygen to operate. This would be the #1 case for this.
I thought clouds reduced overall temperature? (Score:2)
I am a bit confused, maybe someone can help me? I remember reading that more clouds = reduced surface temperature, why would contrails increase the temperature?
Chemtrails make me happy (Score:2)
I'm glad the mind control chemicals are thousands of feet above me instead of in my drinking water.
Re: Chemtrails make me happy (Score:1)
Every drop of rain coalesced around a nucleus, usually soot or a mold spore.
Re: (Score:2)
Chemtrails are making the frogs happy.
Re: (Score:2)
> Gladly enough, a majority of people seem naturally immunized to their brain washing program.
Then why are you still trolling to try to discredit them?
Re: (Score:2)
> Chemtrails are making the frogs happy.
Do these [1]look like happy chemtrail frogs [youtube.com] to you?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxScnMSVxIs
Re: (Score:2)
There's a lot of other good reasons not to drink from a river.
Re: (Score:2)
We've been saying for years that climate scientists on jet planes are a source of global warming, here's the proof.
You can have my gas only non-plug-in 2006 prius the day all planes are grounded.