http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/airplane-contrails-may-be-creating-accidental-

geoengineering-180957561/

Smithsonian Magazine

By Sarah Zielinski

smithsonian.com

December 16, 2015

Airplane Contrails May Be Creating Accidental Geoengineering

Dissipating haze from plane exhaust alters how sunlight reaches the Earth and may be unintentionally

affecting our climate

High in the sky, aerosols from airplane exhaust become encased in ice and form the bright contrails seen in a

plane’s wake. (limpido/iStock)

If you go outside on a clear day and look up toward the sun—being careful to block out the bright disk

with your thumb—you might see a hazy white region surrounding our star.

This haze is caused by airplanes, and it is gradually whitening blue skies, says Charles Long of NOAA’s

Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. “We might be actually conducting some

unintentional geoengineering here,” Long said at a press conference this week at the American

Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco.

Geoengineering involves the manipulation of an environmental process in such a way, usually

deliberate, that it affects the Earth’s climate. For instance, previous researchers have proposed

combating global warming by intentionally seeding the atmosphere with small particles, or aerosols, to

scatter some sunlight and reduce the amount of heat trapped by greenhouse gases.

Long and his colleagues don’t yet have enough data to know how much of an effect the icy haze left by

airplanes may be having on the climate or whether it is contributing to warming or cooling. But its

existence demonstrates yet another way that humans might be altering the climate system, Long says,

and “you can see this with your own eyes.”

The discovery comes out of studies of how much sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface. This energy is not

constant. From the 1950s to the 1980s, for instance, the sun seemed to slightly dim, then it started to

brighten.

When scientists looked for a cause, they tried linking these changes to the sun’s variable output, said

Martin Wild of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich during the press

conference. But they couldn’t find any correlations.

“If it’s not the sun, it must be the atmosphere” responsible for the change, he said. High levels of

pollution in the mid-20th century sent massive amounts of aerosols into the atmosphere, where they

blocked some of the sun’s energy. But when places like the United States and Europe began polluting

less, the amount of aerosols decreased, and the sun appeared to slightly brighten.

Long and his colleagues found intriguing data that something else is also going on. Some of the sun’s

light travels directly to the Earth’s surface, but some of it gets scattered during the trip through the

atmosphere. With less pollution, this diffuse light should have decreased, but instead it appeared to be

increasing.

“We’ve got a mystery here,” Long said. There must be something in the atmosphere scattering the sun’s

light. “Small ice particles fit the bill,” he said.

Long thinks air traffic is the most likely source of those particles. Exhaust from an airplane engine

contains aerosols and water vapor. High in the atmosphere, where it is extremely cold, the particles

serve as nuclei for ice crystals, which form the bright contrails seen in a plane’s wake. Some of these

contrails, scientists have found, can contribute to climate change.

As a contrail dissipates, it leaves behind a thin, icy haze. The sky may appear cloud free, but the particles

are there until they fall out of the atmosphere. And while in the sky, they scatter the sun’s light in a

similar way as in the proposed geoengineering projects.

“It seems quite possible that [Long is] seeing something that’s real,” says Kevin Trenberth of the

National Center for Atmospheric Research. But there’s a lot more work that needs to be done to verify

the find and make a connection to the climate.

Skies aren’t clear all the time, and why they are clear one day and not the next could matter. “The

reason for the clear sky is a factor [Long] needs to explore more,” Trenbeth says.

Long admits that his study creates far more questions than it answers. So far he has good data for only

one spot in Oklahoma, and there could be less sky whitening in places that don’t get as much air traffic.

The answers to these questions could help scientists better determine what effect airplane travel is

having on the global atmosphere and improve climate models, so we can better understand what will

happen on our planet in the future.

Related Content

Four Things to Know About the Paris Climate Deal

No One Trusts Geoengineering—But Pretty Soon It's Not Going To Be a Choice

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/airplane-contrails-may-be-creating-

accidental-geoengineering-180957561/#IpLFEIovlTK5H4wG.99

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http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/no-one-trusts-geoengineering-pretty-soon-its-not-

going-be-choice-180949367/

The Smithsonian Magazine

January 16, 2014

No One Trusts Geoengineering—But Pretty Soon It's Not Going To Be a Choice

We're very quickly running out of time to deal with rising carbon emissions

By Colin Schultz

smithsonian.com

January 16, 2014

In order to stave off catastrophic effects on the ecosystem, we need to keep global warming below 2°C.

Even world leaders have agreed on that. But it's not going to happen. As it stands, we're looking at

more like 3.6 to 6°C of global average warming. This is bad.

To keep global warming below 2°C, we have about four years for global carbon emissions to peak. After

that, they need to start coming down—fast, at a rate of around 4 percent per year. That's also not

going to happen.

If we won't cut our emissions, and we want to keep the Earth operating basically the same way it has for

the entire history of human civilization, well, we're quickly running out of options. This leaves us with

geoengineering—the deliberate manipulation of the Earth's atmosphere or climate system to control

the weather.

Very understandably, says a new report, people don't trust geoengineering. Many geoengineering

schemes carry a lot of unknowns, and more than a faint whiff of hubris.

There are many types of geoengineering that we could do, but in general they can be broken down into

two major camps: ones that try to hide the problem, and ones that try to stop it. The “hiding” group

includes a lot of sci fi-esque schemes, like installing giant mirrors, meant to reflect the sun's light, in

space. Some recent research suggests that these projects might not even work. But say they did.

There's still a big problem: if we ever stopped doing them for some reason—say, because of a war—it

would be a catastrophe.

The champion of the "try to stop it" camp is carbon capture and storage, a plan to pull carbon dioxide

out of the air and lock it away.

As reported by Reuters yesterday, a new United Nations draft report says if we're going to come

anywhere close to hitting our climate goals, we're going to need to start undoing what we've done and

start pulling carbon dioxide out of the air.

It says the world is doing too little to achieve a goal agreed in 2010 of limiting warming to below 2

degrees (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, seen as a threshold for dangerous floods,

heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels.

To get on track, governments may have to turn ever more to technologies for "carbon dioxide removal"

(CDR) from the air, ranging from capturing and burying emissions from coal-fired power plants to

planting more forests that use carbon to grow.

Carbon capture and storage at the scale we'll need it is a long way off. Test projects of the technology,

says the New York Times, are being closed down, “despite a consensus among scientists and

engineers that such projects are essential to meet international goals for slowing the buildup of climate-

changing gases.”

The aversion to carbon capture and storage, says David Biello for Scientific American, is mostly an

economics problem (though other issues do exist).

If we don't cut our emissions and we don't deploy an industrial-scale carbon capture and storage

program, we're locking ourselves into at least 10,000 years of warming, says a new study—

10,000 years of global average temperatures higher than anything we've seen since the advent

of agriculture. That's a long time to try to keep the space mirrors flying.

Related Content

Airplane Contrails May Be Creating Accidental Geoengineering

A Hotter Climate May Boost Conflict, From Shootings to Wars

End

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Additional Notes:

RE: Aviation & Weather Modification Impacts on Global Warming & Climate Change

There are many factors which may cause climate change and exacerbate global warming. I hope that

you will investigate the following information from NASA, NOAA, UCAR/NCAR, EPA, Stanford Professor

Mark Jacobson, Edward Teller on the warming impacts of water vapor, research from the IPCC on

“Aviation & The Global Atmosphere, and other information.

1) In a NASA Press Release Dated: April 28, 2004, this research item was found:

“…NASA scientists have found that cirrus clouds, formed by contrails from aircraft engine exhaust, are

capable of increasing average surface temperatures enough to account for a warming trend in the

United States that occurred between 1975 and 1994. According to Patrick Minnis, a senior research

scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., there has been a one percent per decade

increase in cirrus cloud cover over the United States, likely due to air traffic. Cirrus clouds exert a

warming influence on the surface by allowing most of the Sun’s rays to pass through but then trapping

some of the resulting heat emitted by the surface and lower atmosphere…”

2) And then this information by Stanford University Professor Mark Jacobson in Nature:

“How Aircraft Emissions Contribute to Warming”

“Aviation contributes up to one-fifth of warming in some areas of the Arctic.”

By Rex Dalton

“…The analysis, by atmospheric scientists at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, also shows that

in the Arctic, aircraft vapour trails produced 15–20% of warming… Previous studies have only estimated

the impacts of commercial aviation, but this is the first use of actual emissions data — from 2004 and

2006 — to calculate warming from such flights, says Mark Jacobson, a Stanford engineer who presented

the analysis on 17 December at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in San Francisco,

California…”

3) The EPA, U.S. branches of the military, and other agencies have been studying the impacts of jet and

rocket fuel emissions (which includes missiles), for years. These reports on the impacts of these types of

emission on climate and our atmosphere are readily available online.

A) One example is the EPA Report on Jet Fuel Emissions located at this link:

http://www.epa.gov/oms/regs/nonroad/aviation/r99013.pdf

“Evaluation of Air Pollutant Emissions from Subsonic Commercial Jet Aircraft”

B) SWRCB Study Addressing “Perchlorate Contamination of Drinking-Water Sources in California”

January 2004 (Also source of air pollution in rocket fuel). Note that both rocket and jets emit large

quantities water vapor, a greenhouse gas, as byproducts of combustion which mix with other emissions

and can create man-made clouds which change the climate.

4) The IPCC then produced a report on: “Aviation & the Global Atmosphere”

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/aviation/

“…EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - Aircraft emissions in conjunction with other anthropogenic sources are

expected to modify atmospheric composition (gases and aerosols), hence radiative forcing and

climate. Atmospheric changes from aircraft result from three types of processes: direct emission of

radiatively active substances (e.g., CO2 or water vapor); emission of chemical species that produce or

destroy radiatively active substances (e.g., NOx, which modifies O3 concentration); and emission of

substances that trigger the generation of aerosol particles or lead to changes in natural clouds (e.g.,

contrails)…”

Please note that aviation impacts on the climate and water vapor (a major greenhouse gas), are having a

tremendous impact on micro-climates, weather, and the global climate. When you add the impacts of

jet and rocket fuel emissions to this mix the negative impacts may be much greater than we suspect

with regard to Climate Change and Global Warming.

5) It should also be noted NOAA (Maryland), has a yearly listing of ongoing weather modification

programs in the western states which have the potential to change micro-climates, local weather, and

worldwide climate. I have included listings from NOAA for the last several years in this packet.

A) When you add the UCAR/NCAR (Colorado), listing of worldwide weather modification programs

climate change both in the U.S. and worldwide from these programs could be having a great impact on

local weather and climate. See the link below for additional information:

http://www2.ucar.edu/news/weather-modification-multimedia-gallery

B) When you take into account the aviation impacts on micro-climates, local weather, and

climate and then add to this mix U.S. and worldwide weather modification programs there is little

doubt that the cumulative and synergistic impacts of these programs is exacerbating climate

change at all levels. I have also included in this packet a letter from the Executive Office of the

President of the United States, Office of Science & Technology Policy (2005), John H.

Marburger, III, Director, which states in part under “Local Political & Legal Ramifications”:

“…Because small scale weather modification (e.g., cloud seeding) may promote rain in one area to

the detriment of another, weather modification could result in inter-state (including Indian Tribes)

litigation or private citizen litigation against the modification programs.

The legal and liability issues pertaining to weather modification, and the potential

adverse consequences on life, property, and water resource availability resulting from weather

modification activities, must be considered fully…”

6) In “ACTIVE CLIMATE STABILIZATION” Edward Teller1,2, Roderick Hyde2 and Lowell

Wood1,2,#1Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305-6010 and 2University of

California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA 94550, is the following statement:

“…Similarly, it’s not widely appreciated that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide – CO2 – are

only very loosely correlated with average climatic conditions over this extended interval of geologic

time, in that it’s been much colder with substantially higher air concentrations of CO2 and also much

warmer with substantially lower atmospheric levels of CO2 than at present; indeed, the CO2 level in the

air is observed in the geologic record to be one of the weaker determinants of globally and season-

averaged temperature…”

7) NASA: Water Vapor Confirmed As Major Player In Climate Change

Date: November 18, 2008

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Summary: “…Water vapor is known to be Earth's most abundant greenhouse gas, but the extent of its

contribution to global warming has been debated. Using recent NASA satellite data, researchers have

estimated more precisely than ever the heat-trapping effect of water in the air, validating the role of the

gas as a critical component of climate change…”

Also in 2008: “…Andrew Dessler and colleagues from Texas A&M University in College Station confirmed

that the heat amplifying effect of water vapor is potent enough to double the climate warming caused

by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere…”

In 2009: “…Andrew Dessler, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences who specializes in

research on climate, says that warming due to increases in greenhouse gases will lead to higher

humidity in the atmosphere. And because water vapor itself is a greenhouse gas, this will cause

additional warming. This process is known as water vapor feedback and is responsible for a significant

portion of the warming predicted to occur over the next Century…”

We have to realize that many power plants release, and in many cases don’t capture water vapor. This

includes nuclear power plants. If this water vapor were captured and used to produce power it would

increase power production for these industries and also reduce the amount of water vapor released into

the atmosphere.

Please note that the few examples above are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the multiple

layers of problems that exacerbate climate change and global warming. Our own government agencies

and universities are studying the problems and fully realize that multiple issues are involved in climate

change and global warming.

We have to realize that weather modification programs, aviation impacts, water vapor releases, aviation

impacts, and other types of air pollution all contribute to climate change and exacerbate global

warming. To state that Climate Change and Global Warming are only caused by increases in Carbon

Dioxide is to ignore the multitude of man-made impacts, some of which are listed above or are provided

in the enclosed packet. (I have also enclosed a book by Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson in this packet

on Atmospheric Pollution.)

We are now in the habit of blaming every problem on Climate Change and Global Warming with the root

cause as increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Until we can identify that the synergistic and

cumulative impacts of multiple causes for changing climate and warming, in some areas, then there is

no hope of finding a solution. We must not ignore these other contributing factors.

In closing I would like to state that the idea of a nationwide carbon tax is unacceptable because there

has been no determination on where this new, regressive tax money, would be spent. In addition,

there are other causes of climate change and global warming which should be addressed by our elected

officials. This is not a “one-size-fits-all” problem with carbon dioxide as the only problem.

Please note that the U.S. House Science & Technology Committee held three separate hearings, along

with the UK Parliament in 2009 and 2010, on the subject of Geoengineering and Global Geoengineering

Governance. These hearings promoted Solar Radiation Management (a part of the Geoengineering

definition), as a way to “mask” global warming.

Those that were invited to give testimony, at these hearings, were made up mostly of individuals that

were promoting a variety of Geoengineering schemes. The problem was that the EPA, USDA, marine

and other biologists, US Forest Service, and other agencies were not asked to testify on the effects of

releasing sulfur or aluminum oxide into the atmosphere. (We take sulfur out of diesel fuel because of

environmental and health effects and yet a few want to release it into the atmosphere where it will

have huge implications for human health, trees, plants, water sources, etc.)

One part of Geoengineering is Solar Radiation Management (Climate Remediation), is defined as

“planetary-scale environmental engineering” of our atmosphere, our weather, the oceans, and the Earth

Itself to reduce the amount of direct sunlight reaching the Earth.

The addition of sulfur or aluminum oxide into the atmosphere via small aircraft or rockets on an ongoing

and worldwide basis is now being heavily promoted. The testing of these ideas is being promoted by a

few professors in the United States and elsewhere.

The concern I have regarding these risky ideas is that both sulfur and aluminum particulates can return

to Earth and pollute our air, water, and soils. Sulfur can cause acid rains which could impact our trees

and fresh water supplies. The use of these or other particulates in the atmosphere to reduce the

amount of direct sunlight reaching the Earth could have other unintended consequences.

Reducing Solar Panel Power Production

Increasing the lack of Vitamin D from skin exposure to sunlight

Increases in molds, mildews, and viruses from lack of direct sunlight

Increasing human health problems like asthma

Decline in Tree Health due to acid rains

Pollution of air, water, and soils

Lower crop production from lack of photosynthesis and direct sunlight

In addition, there is now a proposal to whiten clouds by using salt particles which I am requesting that

you investigate. It is assumed that white clouds will reflect more sunlight away from the Earth.

Whether this will work or not remains to be seen. However, the experiments are now being proposed

for Moss Landing in California. What will impact will the rainout or fallout of salt particles on land

areas, vegetation, and fresh water supplies? Also what impact will these types of programs have on

normal rainfall from clouds? Could the size of the nanoparticles reduce rainfall when these clouds

reach land? Why are the dates and times of these experiments being kept secret from the public? I

am encouraging you to oppose these experiments in at Moss Landing in California until such time as

your office has time to investigate this issue.

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_28470304/climate-change-controversial-cloud-brightening-

project-proposed-moss

San Jose Mercury News - July 11, 2015

Climate Change: Controversial 'Cloud Brightening' Project Proposed For Moss Landing

(California Geoengineering Project)

List of Attachments:

“How Aircraft Emissions Contribute to Warming-Aviation contributes up to One-Fifth of Warming in

Some Areas of the Arctic” (See Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson information)

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091221/full/news.2009.1157.html

NASA-New Study Turns Up the Heat on Soot’s Role in Himalayan Warming December 14, 2009

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/himalayan-warming.html

NASA-Interactions With Aerosols Boost Warming Potential of Some Gases October 28, 2009

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/aerosol_boost.html

How Military Aircraft Contrails Form A Cloud – BBC Science News – Photographic Series

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8309629.stm

NASA Researchers Search Out Alternative Fuel Future – May 12, 2013

“…That reason is a NASA project to study the effects that burning an alternate biofuel has on engine

performance, emissions and aircraft-generated contrails at altitude. The hope is that using alternate

biofuels will be a safe and effective way to reduce aviation's impact on the environment….”

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/access_fuel.html

NASA - Clouds Caused by Aircraft Exhaust May Warm the U.S. Climate – April 27, 2004

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/apr/HQ_04140_clouds_climate.html

Climate 'technical fix' may yield warming, not cooling – BBC Science News - April 6, 2011

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-12983795?print=true

“…Whitening clouds by spraying them with seawater, proposed as a "technical fix" for climate change,

could do more harm than good, according to research…”

It should be noted that anyone can now bet on the weather. With the growth of Weather

Modification Companies and the unregulated weather modification programs ongoing across the

United States, it appears that anyone from private individuals, private companies, cities, states,

counties, energy companies, etc., can engage in weather modification activities. They can then also

bet on weather derivatives for snow or rainfall enhancement in the areas where they then initiate

these programs. Worldwide this is an unregulated $Billion business.

USA Today - Weather Derivatives Decoming Hot Commodities - June 9 2008

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/forecast/2008-06-09-weather-derivative_N.htm

“…The total value of contracts traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was $19.2 billion last year,

down from 2006's record of $45.2 billion, but significantly higher than the $8.4 billion traded in

2005 and the $4.6 billion traded in 2004, according to the WRMA…”

Introduction to Weather Derivatives by Geoffrey Considine, Ph.D., Weather Derivatives Group, Aquila

Energy

https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/weather/files/WEA_intro_to_weather_der.pdf

Definition of Weather Derivatives: Weather derivatives are financial instruments that can be

used by organizations or individuals as part of a risk management strategy to reduce risk

associated with adverse or unexpected weather conditions. (Note: This looks to be an

unregulated market scheme.)

Weather Market Overview – CLLIMETRIX Website – (Very Interesting Website)

http://www.climetrix.com/WeatherMarket/MarketOverview/

Enclosed Book: Atmospheric Pollution by Mark Z. Jacobson, Professor Stanford University

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http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_is_water_vapor.htm

What is water vapor?

Water vapor is water in its gaseous state-instead of liquid or solid (ice). Water vapor is totally invisible. If you see a cloud,

fog, or mist, these are all liquid water, not water vapor.

Water vapor is extremely important to the weather and climate. Without it, there would be no clouds or rain or snow, since

all of these require water vapor in order to form. All of the water vapor that evaporates from the surface of the Earth

eventually returns as precipitation - rain or snow.

Water vapor is also the Earth's most important greenhouse gas, accounting for about 90% of the Earth's natural greenhouse

effect, which helps keep the Earth warm enough to support life.

When liquid water is evaporated to form water vapor, heat is absorbed. This helps to cool the surface of the Earth. This

"latent heat of condensation" is released again when the water vapor condenses to form cloud water. This source of heat

helps drive the updrafts in clouds and precipitation systems, which then causes even more water vapor to condense into

cloud, and more cloud water and ice to form precipitation.

Interesting facts:

Water Vapor Cools AND Warms the Climate System? When water evaporates from the surface of the Earth, it cools the

surface. This keeps the surface from getting too hot. But because that water vapor is also the atmosphere's primary

greenhouse gas, water vapor acts to keep the Earth's surface warmer than it would otherwise be.

So which effect is stronger, water vapor's cooling effect or warming effect? Interestingly, it is seldom mentioned in the

global warming debate that the surface cooling effect of evaporation (which creates water vapor) is stronger than its

greenhouse warming effect.

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