Vapour trails

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algas

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On a relativly cloud free day, looking out of my windows I can see approx 12 vapour trails, some fresh, some probably 1/2 mile wide, they account for more than 75 % of cloud cover today, what a difference from lockdown and when we had the volcanic eruptions which disrupted air travel, the skies were clearer and it seemed colours more vivid.
Must be bad for the planet but all the governments want to do is hit the poor motorist or home owner who wants a gas boiler.
 
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denso13 said:
They are only water vapour/ice crystals, i.e. clouds.
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So you are suggesting by that answer that aircraft do not pollute the atmosphere. Those vapour trails are just that vapour and they do contain multiple pollutants that do indeed pollute the atmosphere. Note I said suggesting not saying so don't go off down that tangent.
 
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Fred Blogs said:
So you are suggesting by that answer that aircraft do not pollute the atmosphere. Those vapour trails are just that vapour and they do contain multiple pollutants that do indeed pollute the atmosphere. Note I said suggesting not saying so don't go off down that tangent.
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Pat Ex, is that you?!?

Denso13 said this ...

They are only water vapour/ice crystals, i.e. clouds.

How do you interpret that as them meaning aircraft don't pollute? They made no reference to that one way or the other.

Classic Pat Ex esque trolling technique.
 
Yep, looks like a troll, walks .....

They aren't just water - they'll be laced with CO2 to make them a bit acidic, NOx to promote ozone, SOx and soot and particulates which do even more harm than the CO2 does. The spread of the contrails shows how well planes distribute the pollutants. The weather conditions happen to make the trails visible.
It's much much worse near airports even if you can't see anything.

I saw an article which said that the emissions from ships cool the planet because they reflect sunlight. Hogwash. Fogwash maybe.

Yes the air smelled better despite the viral load.
 
I find it weird that after air transport, shipping, car usage and industry shut down for nigh on 2 years, or at the very least reduced to pre industrial revolution levels, climate change has worsened so dramatically.
 
Justin Passing said:
I saw an article which said that the emissions from ships cool the planet because they reflect sunlight.
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Not sure if it's still the case but a few years back, there were a dozen ships that caused more pollution than all the cars on the planet.
 
gone said:
Not sure if it's still the case but a few years back, there were a dozen ships that caused more pollution than all the cars on the planet.
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I've read similar recently. There was a "how do they do it" prog which featured a **ing big two-stroke diesel, prop revs = crank revs. Running on cheap low grade fuel. Crawl inside to check the bores.... They could take one or more cylinders off line while it was running!
How efficient and clean would that be?

Marine diesels have been clamped down on for about 20 years - slowly

All the Sh1t in the atmosphere lasts a long time ,
CO2 it's a few years to a couple of hundred. Decades anyway
Methane 12 years is the quoted number
NOx around 100 years
SOx dunno - it washes out in acid rain
CFC's from a few years to forever.. Evil things they get degraded by UV to chlorides which destroy stratospheric ozone in a huge chain reaction


see https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-wg1-chapter2-1.pdf#table-2-14
Decades.

He's a stub to an article on shipping doing cooling, short term. Haven't read deeper. SHort term possible gains, I think: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/sep/09/carbon-emissions-planes-shipping

Another on bad contrails : https://www.transportenvironment.or...ls-warm-planet-twice-much-co2-eu-study-finds/

Bad shipping: https://www.independent.co.uk/clima...ion-far-more-damaging-than-flying-396455.html
 
gone said:
I find it weird that after air transport, shipping, car usage and industry shut down for nigh on 2 years, or at the very least reduced to pre industrial revolution levels, climate change has worsened so dramatically.
Click to expand...

The climate changes all the time, it even changed before the Industrial Revolution!
 
The covid pause didn't affect atmospheric CO2 as much as as 'they' expected.
It's well worth inquiry but not a knee-jerk reaction.
There are lots of anomalies in the whole climate thing. People clamber to find reasons and rejoice when they find them - confirmation bias.
It's quite easy to find something which doesn't fit any particular . Sometimes someone works out later how it does fit if you take q r and s into account. The list of things, ozone here and sea currents there and arctic albido there and methane somewhere else and Malkovitch cycles - seems to go on forever. Just ozone is a funny one, because it operates in different ways at different altitudes.
There are loads of little mechanism we do know about, which mostly work in the direction of global warming. Off the top of my head, half a dozen are positive-feedback systems some of which could get to tipping points. Experts have their own lists.
I think there's a lot we don't understand but I'm convinced GW is progressing, and we're largely responsible for it.
The recent changes are faster than ever seen. Consistent evidence is everywhere. There's not much to doubt.
We're still on 84% fossil fuels.
 
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