Shuttle Launches Form Arctic Clouds

core plexus writes "The Anchorage Daily News is reporting that in late May, researchers reported finding that the shuttle's exhaust, 97 percent of which is water vapor, quickly migrates to the highest reaches of the atmosphere above the Arctic. There the vapor spreads out about 50 miles high in Earth's mesosphere, just below the thermosphere, the air's highest layer, and settles to form a wispy type of cloud called noctilucent clouds. The shuttle trails a giant plume of exhaust while rising through the atmosphere, Mike Stevens, the study's lead author, said earlier this summer on Arctic Science Journeys Radio at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "You can think of it as essentially a long garden hose that is on the order of (621 miles) long," Stevens said."

Comments

Re:What am I to say?

[curious.corn]

Me too! I remember an article on SciAm on the correlation between these clouds and ozone layer destruction. Ok, googled a couple of minutes and found this.

Re:What am I to say?

[barakn]

RTFA. The shuttle-induced noctilucent clouds form in the mesosphere, and so are well above the ozone and the stratospheric ice clouds that help destroy the ozone layer. The Anchorage Daily News was careful to call the phenomenon "benign."