Contrails form in the sky the same way your breath fogs up on a cold morning.
As an airplane passes through cold, moist air, contrails form as vapors from the engines condense on bits of unburned fuel in the exhaust stream.
Although the causes of cloud clouds have been known for decades, it is only in recent years that the impact of human-generated clouds on climate warming has been recognized.
“They create an artificial cloud layer that traps the Earth’s heat trying to escape into space,” said Carlos Lopez de la Osa of the Transport and Environment Campaign Group, which conducted new research into the solution. On a contrail.
“The scale of warming associated with them would have an impact roughly comparable to that of aviation carbon emissions.”
Conspiracy theories have grown around contrails, with some claiming that contrails are actually “chemtrails” containing chemical or biological substances.
The purpose of these chemtrails, the conspiracy theory claims, is to spread infectious diseases by vaccinating the population or controlling their minds.
None of these thoughts are true at all.
“It is unfortunate that these conspiracy theories are causing confusion on an issue that needs a lot of consensus and clarity,” said Matteo Mirolo of Breakthrough Energy and one of the COP29 debate organizers.
“Chemtrails are a baseless theory. “There is absolutely no scientific basis for this.”
COP Event, external We aim to draw attention to the fact that relatively simple changes to aviation practices can eliminate much of the warming impact of these trails.
Transportation and environmental studies show that about 80% of the warming associated with contrails comes from just 3% of flights.
Adjusting the flight paths of a small number of aircraft could reduce contrail heating by more than half by 2040 at a cost of less than £4 per flight.
Geography and the latitude of your flight have a big impact on whether contrails warm up. The report said flights in North America, Europe and the North Atlantic region accounted for more than half of global warming in 2019.
The time of day also affects the climatic effects of contrails. Flights formed by evening and night flights make the greatest contribution to warming. Seasonality is also important. The warmest contrails tend to occur in the winter.
“Planes are already flying through areas of thunderstorms and turbulence,” Lopez de la Osa said.
“We need to add one more constraint to the flight plan, and that is to avoid areas of contrail formation.”
“Of all the climate solutions being discussed at COP29, this is probably one of the simplest.”
The researchers hope that this COP event will spread awareness of problems and solutions.
They point out that a huge amount of money and research is going into developing sustainable aviation fuels.
They believe that solving contrails can be a big win for the climate at little cost.
