BBC: Met Sat Images: How aircraft contrails form cloud

Frank_Ryan_jr wrote:

Mark, I can tell you categorically that they do.
I live in Shannon and it is very noticable on a clear day
the ammount of haze and later on cloud that planes cause.
The satellite images I have seen before and there is
even a famous one (that I can't find right now) of a photo
that was taken from the ISS that shows it better than that BBC link.

I'm not sure (maybe someone in the know will let us know)
but I wonder is there some marker that craft passing over Ireland from Europe
use at Shannon because there ALWAYS sees to be high alt planes over here.

Frank,

From what I remember of a Nat. Geo. program on the Lockerbie plane disaster, there are different corridors for traffic to take - bit like motorways - across the UK and Ireland. From Heathrow, for example, there are a number of corridors which planes can take across UK/Ireland to get to the US. If PAM AM Flight 103 had taken a different route instead of going over Scotland, it could easily have blown up over Ireland or just off the west coast. At least that's my understanding anyway...

Some useful google earth maps here.
192.206.28.84/Website/ANP%20AERONAUTICAL%20INFORMATION.htm
I think what you might be after are European UPPER routes.

and this:
www.avsim.com/atco/latcc.htm

Michael.

Frank_Ryan_jr wrote:

Seanine,
is there a pic for 9/11?

None that I could find, but there was one for Day 2 after the 3 days hiatus was announced, but the area covered was not the same as the example one above, Frank. All the rage in the news was the findings that the temperature rose 3 degrees Farenheit per day in those 3 days due to the lack of cloud cover, probably caused by airplane contrails.

Seanie.

Frank, I found this for Sept 11. It has time lapse sequence of a small number of milatry contrails (one being Airforce 1). Together they formed a large cirrus cloud covering 24,000 square miles. Original source NY Times article October 30th 2001. It starts with an image of more typical traffic (you may need to zoom to see detail)

www-pm.larc.nasa.gov/sass/NY_TIMES_103001.jpg

Michael - thanks for the links - I obtained the paper cited in the second reference and I have to confess I'm suspicious of the quality of the first report that was published in Nature.

While it is not proven (if one sides with second paper) I tend to side with Dave's comment.

My initial interest in this was from the astronomical viewpoint - do contrails really form cirrus clouds - it appears the answer to that one is, unfortunately, yes.

It's been an eye opener - thanks lads.

Mark