Posted on Feb 17, 2020
Climate impact of flying could be cut significantly with small altitude changes
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The climate cost of aviation could be significantly reduced by making small changes to the altitudes at which aircrafts fly, a new study suggests.
Contrails – the white fumes often spotted trailing behind planes – are thought to have more of a warming effect than the CO2 produced by planes.
But new research suggests changing the altitude of just 1.7 per cent of flights by a margin of 2,000ft could reduce contrails’ climate impact by nearly 60 per cent.
Furthermore, when combined with using cleaner engines, contrail-related harm could be slashed by up to 90 per cent, the study led by Imperial College London (ICL) scientists found.
“According to our study, changing the altitude of a small number of flights could significantly reduce the climate effects of aviation contrails,” said lead author Dr Marc Stettler, a senior lecturer at ICL’s faculty of engineering.
Contrails – the white fumes often spotted trailing behind planes – are thought to have more of a warming effect than the CO2 produced by planes.
But new research suggests changing the altitude of just 1.7 per cent of flights by a margin of 2,000ft could reduce contrails’ climate impact by nearly 60 per cent.
Furthermore, when combined with using cleaner engines, contrail-related harm could be slashed by up to 90 per cent, the study led by Imperial College London (ICL) scientists found.
“According to our study, changing the altitude of a small number of flights could significantly reduce the climate effects of aviation contrails,” said lead author Dr Marc Stettler, a senior lecturer at ICL’s faculty of engineering.
Climate impact of flying could be cut significantly with small altitude changes
Posted from independent.co.uk
Flying
Environment
Climate Change
Science
Posted 5 y ago
Responses: 2
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They were talking about this a few years back. Seems that most of the Atmosphere is in layers and some layers are more significantly impacted by things than others. Toss in what the Japanese discovered about low level clouds and the magnetic field shifts, and better picture is starting to form. Every little bit helps...when we stopped using CFC, and HFC's we gave nature a chance to heal...and it is doing just that. NOTE: The hole in the Ozone layer is NOT gone as some seem to think, and it is still very thin in a lot of places. Warming takes its toll on the Ozone Layer too. But it will "heal" in our lifetimes, because we were proactive. So every little step we can make to tidy up our Spaceship: cleaner air, cleaner water, less polluted animals and plants...all those things help. And they don't matter what your belief system is...water doesn't care about what you think about it, it is either clean or it isn't. LOL
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