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Contrails Affect Weather

Posted by michael on from the button-up-your-overcoat dept.

TheSync writes "Wired News has a story about how contrails may influence the weather. The grounding of commercial flight operations after the 9/11 attack gave scientists a unique opportunity to compare weather with and without contrail-producing flight operations. Day/night temperature differences rose 3 degrees Celsius in some areas."

39 comments

  1. Man affects the environment! by ObviousGuy · · Score: 1

    News at 11.

    Could this mean that burning through all that fossil fuel is actually helping to cool the earth?

    I suggest we fly more airplanes to counteract the damage to the atmosphere that we are causing with our SUVs.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    1. Re:Man affects the environment! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Actually, yes.

      I was watching a program that talked about how global warming will eventually cause at least a mini-ice age like the one that happend in europe sometime around the 1500s. These climatologists think this: When the avg temp increases and enough ice melts, it obviously changes the salinity (amt of salt) of the ocean. When the salinity changes enough the ocean currents change which causes the jet stream to change so cold air is constantly being diverted south -- this causes at least a mini ice-age or maybe a full ice-age. After awhile, the salinity of the oceans change as more ice forms. Then the ocean currents would change back to what there about are now.

      That cycle basically re-corrects the envioronment.

    2. Re:Man affects the environment! by jo42 · · Score: 1

      ...and don't forget the methane from all the cow farts. Talk about your greenhouse gas.

  2. Repeat. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Repeat

  3. Duplicate article? by questionlp · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is a duplicate article... the first one was posted earlier today, here.

    1. Re:Duplicate article? by Kris_J · · Score: 2

      Do duplicate stories ever get deleted if they're noticed quickly?

    2. Re:Duplicate article? by excesspwr · · Score: 1

      No and neither do duplicate posts.

    3. Re:Duplicate article? by excesspwr · · Score: 2, Funny

      No and neither do duplicate posts.

      (Watch as I am modded down as redundant)

    4. Re:Duplicate article? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No and neither do duplicate posts.

      But it would be funny if a slashdot editor got "This exact article has already been posted. Try to be more original..."

    5. Re:Duplicate article? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sigh. yamt -- Yet Another michael & timothy.

    6. Re:Duplicate article? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      cant blame the link filter on this one. the first article dropped the "www" from the url, while this article includes it.

  4. RTFA by Elias+Israel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, it's the ever-present /. cliche. The summary appears to have been written without reference to the underlying article.

    This statement:

    Day/night temperature differences rose 3 degrees Celsius in some areas...

    is completely backwards

    From the article

    A team of climatologists presented their work Tuesday, showing that temperatures in the United States fluctuated by 1.2 degrees Celsius more when airplanes were grounded than when normal flight patterns prevailed. That is, planes in the sky dampen the variability between day and nighttime temperatures. More air travel, the researchers suggest, brings less meteorological difference between noon and midnight.

    Now, whether this is a good thing or a bad thing can certainly be debated, and I expect the very next post in this topic to come from some hopelessly silly GreenPeace activist admonishing us all to stop flying in planes and start hugging dolphins.

    But at least let's start the discussion by actually reading the article first.

    1. Re:RTFA by ObviousGuy · · Score: 1

      Dolphins are known to be very promiscuous and not inhibited by such concepts as homosexuality. If modern liberalism has taught us anything, it is that the freedom of thought expressed through random acts of mating is the highest form of intelligence.

      --
      I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    2. Re:RTFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop flying in planes! Hug a dolphin!

      -- hopelessly silly GreenPeace activist

    3. Re:RTFA by Lars+T. · · Score: 2

      So what is supposed to be your point? The statement is not "completely backwards", it does infact summarize (part of) the article.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  5. the interesting part is... by jnana · · Score: 2
    ... that another researcher tracked (using satellite images) how contrails of military aircraft (the only aircraft flying for those three days) grew from the width of an airplane wing "in a matter of hours into cloud banks that covered 20,000 square kilometers." It hardly seems possible for that to happen in a matter of hours.

    After reading this, I wish I'd have thought to look up at the skies back then and pay more attention to the weather, though I guess we all had more important concerns.

  6. Experiment control by dolphin558 · · Score: 1

    What wasn't mentioned was a control. Did they monitor temperatures on another set of days before or after the experiement. I wouldn't be surprised if the temperature fluctuation was naturally occurring (there might have been a 1.2C change between May 13th and today).

    1. Re:Experiment control by linuxbert · · Score: 2

      they had a control, temperature data dateing back 100 years or so. the weather service keeps track of all the temps for a day on record, so what theses guys are saying, is that there seemed to be greater change in those days, then the average on recent record.

      i am curious though, there was a lot of dust and stuff kicked up when the towers went down, how did that affect weather paterns in the area?

    2. Re:Experiment control by DrSkwid · · Score: 1

      how did that affect weather paterns in the area?

      Heavy showers of masonry and burning people moving to generally dusty in the afternoon, the evening will bring a deep desire for revenge and general bloodletting.

      Over the next few days a general disbelief with scattered crying.

      Next seven days : back breaking toil accompanied by horrific scenes of carnage.

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  7. hunh by tps12 · · Score: 2

    It seems like everything affects the weather these days. Time to go burn some leaves.

    --

    Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
  8. Well, great, I Say! by aozilla · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because that should really decrease the load on the butterflies.

    --
    ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
    1. Re:Well, great, I Say! by aozilla · · Score: 2

      I liked the story better the first time around.

      --
      ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
  9. Austrailia?? by littlerubberfeet · · Score: 1

    I remember the aussis doing a study about this a year ago. Anyone know/remember anything?

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    Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
    1. Re:Austrailia?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. I know nothing.

  10. Come on editors by n-baxley · · Score: 2, Informative

    Can you guys not use your own search engine before posting an article. Hell, all of my original submissions have been rejected, maybe I should try a duplicate story!

    --

    THIS SPACE FOR RENT
    1. Re:Come on editors by aozilla · · Score: 2

      Just put a warning whenever there's an overlap in the "related links" box.

      --
      ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
    2. Re:Come on editors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No shit huh? Same here.

      Grrrr.

  11. Not to mention... by Tom7 · · Score: 1

    Not to mention that the poster doesn't read slashdot either, since this same story was already posted earlier today.

  12. Is this a good study even? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I question this study because I don't know if that's nearly enough data to work on. You'd need a lot longer than a few days of grounded air traffic to test this theory, in my opinion.

  13. Contrails or Chemtrails? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wispy jet exhaust or fiendish plot to control the weather? You be the judge...

    CHEMTRAIL CRIMES & COVER-UP DOCUMENTED

  14. dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    how do you dupe something that is not only less than a say apart, but also is still visibl on the page without scrolling?

  15. This is a first! by Kwil · · Score: 2

    That is, the first time I've ever seen a duplicate article while the other one is still on the front page.

    There's only one article's separation between the two for goodness sakes.

    I really, sincerely, honestly hope that VA is not actually *paying* michael or timothy for this level of editorial attention.

    Some might suggest that doing so goes against VA's fiduciary duties.

    --

    That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze

  16. Duplicate and a missing story by Easy2RememberNick · · Score: 1

    OK I see the duplicate story but what the hell happened to the story on Hotmail changing user's prefs? It was at the top(approx. 11:30Eastern, May 16, '02) and then it disappeared!