Sonja Vlaar
CONTRIBUTION IN ORIGINAL LANGUAGE
According to a new study by Imperial College London, changing the altitude of less than 2% of flights could reduce climate change associated with contrails by 59 percent.
Contrails could be as bad for the climate as CO2 emissions
When hot exhaust fumes from airplanes meet the cold, low-pressure air in the atmosphere, they create white streaks in the sky, which are called "contrails" or contrails. These contrails could be as bad for the climate as their CO2 emissions.
Most contrails only last a few minutes, but some mix with others and linger for up to eighteen hours. Previous research suggests that contrails and the clouds that form them heat the climate as much as the accumulated CO2 emissions from aviation.
The main difference: While CO2 has influenced the atmosphere for centuries, contrails are short-lived and could be reduced quickly.
Damage caused by contrails could be reduced by up to 90%
Imperial College London research has shown that changes in altitude of just 2.000 feet can reduce its effectiveness. In combination with cleaner aircraft engines, climate damage caused by contrails could be reduced by up to 90%, the researchers say.
The lead author Dr. Marc Stettler from the Imperial Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering said: "This new method could very quickly reduce the general climate impact of the aviation industry."
The researchers used computer simulations to predict how changing aircraft altitude would reduce the number of contrails and how long they could linger. Contrails only form in thin layers of the atmosphere with very high humidity and persist. Therefore, planes could avoid these regions. Dr. Stettler said, "A really small fraction of the flights are responsible for the vast majority of the effects of the contrail climate, which means we can turn our attention to them."
"Aiming at the few flights that cause the most damaging contrails and making only minor changes in elevation could significantly reduce the impact of contrails on global warming," said lead author Roger Teoh of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The reduced formation of contrails would more than offset the CO2 released by the additional fuel.
Dr. Stettler said: “We are aware that any additional CO2 released into the atmosphere will have an impact on the climate that extends centuries into the future. That's why we calculated that if we only targeted flights that did not emit additional CO2, we would still achieve a 20% reduction in contrail drive. "
Picture: Pixabay
