James Temple of MIT Technology Review reports on ways to reduce contrails.
- Several studies have found that changing flight patterns slightly to limit contrails could reduce global emissions by as much as 2 percent.
- Contrails form when planes release water vapor, heat, and particulate matter in cold, humid areas.
- These contrails act as a blanket and prevent heat from leaving the atmosphere.
- Reducing contrails could be done by adjusting less than 10 percent of total flights for a relatively small cost.
“In those simulations, the researchers found that reducing the warming effect of contrails by 73% increased fuel costs by just 0.11% and overall costs by 0.08%, when averaged across those tens of thousands of flights. (Only about 14% of the flights needed to be adjusted to avoid forming warming contrails in the simulations.)”
Read the full article here.
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