Most long-lived contrails form within cirrus clouds with uncertain climate impact.

ABSTRACT: Contrail-cirrus is considered the most important component of aviation-induced climate impact. However, a reliable assessment requires better understanding of their radiative effects. Analysis of seven years of humidity observations by instrumented passenger aircraft shows that conditions promoting long-lived contrails are fulfilled most often in regions already covered by subvisible or visible cirrus: ~90% over the Northern midlatitudes and almost 100% in the Southeast Asian subtropics, approximately equally distributed among visible and subvisible cirrus clouds. A conceptual analysis shows that subvisible cirrus and clear-sky cover ~10% of the cruise altitude over Northern midlatitudes ( < 2% in the subtropics) and contrails within these regions are expected to cause additional warming.

SUBMITTER: Petzold A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12583729 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature