Contrails form when hot humid exhaust from jet engines mixes with a cold low pressure atmosphere creating long thin artificial clouds that are left behind by aircrafts. These high and thin cirrus clouds are highly transparent to shortwave radiation, and under certain azimuth angles, present a small Albedo Force allowing most of the incoming energy to reach the surface of the Earth. They do however absorb the outgoing longwave radiation, a portion of which is sent back to the Earth's surface, adding to the shortwave energy. The added energy causes the overall effect of the high thin cirrus clouds to enhance atmospheric greenhouse warming. Researchers estimate that contrails provide 7% of the Earth's cloud cover and may have a greater impact than CO2 emissions. Adjusting flight trajectories could have an impact on greenhouse warming. Previous research mitigating the effects of contrails used only one month of data. The paper describes the analysis of one year of high fidelity National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Rapid Refresh (RAP) data for the presence of Ice Super Saturated Regions (ISSRs). The highest frequency of ISSR was found during the months from June to September at Flight Levels between 300 and 350 where the maximum ISSR % Volume reached 30% of the US airspace. The ISSRs move constantly, however the largest regions identified were situated over the southern and eastern US air space.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Method for analysis of Ice Super Saturated Regions (ISSR) in the U.S. airspace


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2016-04-01


    Size :

    2621913 byte




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Design of ice super saturated region (ISSR) vizualization tool for contrail planning

    Avila, Denis / Sherry, Lance / Thompson, Terrence | IEEE | 2018

    Free access

    Design of Ice Super Saturated Region (ISSR) visualization tool for contrail planning

    Avila, Denis / Sherry, Lance / Thompson, Terrence | IEEE | 2018


    AIRSPACE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, AIRSPACE MANAGEMENT METHOD, AND PROGRAM

    KUSUMI JIN / MIYAKE NORIHISA | European Patent Office | 2020

    Free access