When planes travel and produce con(densation) trails, these trails essentially become clouds. I've witnessed several days where criss-crossing trails have become large areas of cloud cover. If air traffic could be added into the (already 5million variable) weather models, meteorologists may be able to predict when con trails will be produced, and consequently when increased cloud cover will occur. They could then compensate the forecasts to make them more accurate.-- bleh, Nov 13 2006 contrails http://en.wikipedia...Condensation_trails [bleh, Nov 13 2006] recent suggestion to cool the earth http://physorg.com/news82922092.htmlparticulate polution cooling the earth [bleh, Nov 17 2006] Beautiful.-- jmvw, Nov 14 2006 autoboner be damned!-- bleh, Nov 14 2006 After 9-11 when planes were grounded scientists were able to get an idea of the effect of contrails its real and measurable but they need more data. Meaning they need to ground most of the air traffic again and be ready to take measurements.-- pydor, Nov 15 2006 to get actual data, yes, but to compare the two models, no. They could run one model as usual with no air traffc taken in to account. then run a second model with air traffic taken in to account during the time the model is run. i.e. con trails forming as the model is being run. then comare the two to actual readings over the time of the forecast and see which is more accurate.-- bleh, Nov 15 2006 are you saying that artifically produced clouds wouldnt alter weather patterns? during the sept. 11 study, meterologists observed a 1 degree larger difference between night and day temperature meaning that the air traffic may cause the days to stay cooler and nights to stay hotter because the sun cannot get through the cloud cover to warm during the day, and the earth can not radiate heat as effeciently at night.
not only are they turning into clouds, but the clouds contain a higher content of reflective particulates from exhaust that enhance the effects.-- bleh, Nov 15 2006 what would you consider signifigant?
one theory i've heard s that global dimming (the addition of reflective particulate matter into clouds casusing the aforementoned effect) is masking a good deal of global warming's effects. global dimming is coolng slightly less that global warming is warming, so we only observe a small differnece in temperature change, but the actual damage done in global warming is signifigantly larger. what i'm getting at is we should account for all variables we can to get an idea of how bad we are actually f-ing u the atmosphere. we know clouds are being formed by these contrails, and we know that may effect the weather. why not include future air traffc into the model to get a better idea of what we're doing?
p.s. what word are you sorry you had to use?-- bleh, Nov 15 2006 I was guessing 'moist'.-- imaginality, Nov 16 2006 why do so many people hate the word moist?-- bleh, Nov 16 2006 random, halfbakery