This weeks "Chemmy" special.A study on contrails turning into clouds. (WARNING::Too much data)

I found this while I was researching some contrail information on another thread. This study is on contrails turning into clouds. I feel that it contains enough information to reside in it's own thread. I do not have alot of time so I personally do not wish to argue ( I mean debate) over it right now. I cannot, even if I wanted to due to time constraints. So please if you are interested, there is enough exact science and information to last a while. Feel free to comment or debate amongst yourselves. I feel that this is what we all have been looking for.

I posted some of the information in another thread and I did not see anybody say that they have seen it before. I like this study because the minimum age for a contrail to be in this study is 2 hours. Here it goes. Tighten your chin strap,... because my head about exploded trying to decipher the scientific code.

Abstract

This work is two pronged, discussing 1) the morphology of contrails and their transition to cirrus uncinus, and 2) their microphysical and radiative properties. It is based upon the fortuitous occurrence of an unusual set of essentially parallel contrails and the unanticipated availability of nearly simultaneous observations by photography, satellite, automated ground-based lidar, and a newly available database of aircraft flight tracks. The contrails, oriented from the northeast to southwest, are carried to the southeast with a component of the wind so that they are spread from the northwest to southeast. Convective turrets form along each contrail to form the cirrus uncinus with fallstreaks of ice crystals that are oriented essentially normal to the contrail length. Each contrail is observed sequentially by the lidar and tracked backward to the time and position of the originating aircraft track with the appropriate component of the wind. The correlation coefficient between predicted and actual time of arrival at the lidar is 0.99, so that one may identify both visually and satellite-observed contrails exactly. Contrails generated earlier in the westernmost flight corridor occasionally arrive simultaneously with those formed later closer to the lidar to produce broader cirrus fallstreaks and overlapping contrails on the satellite image. The minimum age of a contrail is >2 h and corresponds to the longest time of travel to the lidar. The lag between the initial formation of the contrail and its first detectability by Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is ≈33 min, thus accounting for the distance between the aircraft track and the first detectable contrail by satellite. The lidar also provides particle fall speeds and estimated sizes, optical extinction coefficients, optical thickness (τ = 0.35), and ice water path (IWP = 8.1 g m−2). These values correspond to the lower range of those found for midlatitude cirrus by Heymsfield et al. The ice water per meter of length along the cloud lines is 103–104 times that released by typical jet aircraft. The synthesis of these findings with those of prior investigators provides confidence in the present results. Various authors find that contrail-generated cirrus such as reported here contribute to net regional warming.

Received: December 27, 2004; Accepted: June 30, 2005

This is a little further down the page. Photos are below.

2. Observations

a. Photograph
At about 1100 LT (1500 UTC) on 7 September 2003 the lead author noticed a series of contrails apparently emanating from some point to the southwest of his residence in Silver Spring, Maryland. Some of these had already been converted to cirrus uncinus with fallstreaks and others were being transformed as he watched. At about 1530 UTC he began to photograph these clouds for their aesthetic interest with no intent to study them scientifically. Thus, he did not record the exact time. Figure 1 was taken toward the south at a central elevation of about 25°. There are four lines of clouds (1–4), and probably a fifth (5), that appear to emerge from the southwest in the lower right corner of the picture. All of these had been contrails during the previous hour as he watched. Otherwise the sky was clear. The youngest of these is obviously 1.

To obtain the geometric structure of the clouds we used a telescope to measure the elevation angles of points X and Y on the building at the left. The azimuth angles were measured with a compass and corrected for the 12° magnetic declination west of true north. Using the 10-km height of the cloud-generating level obtained from the lidar (see Fig. 5) we computed the horizontal scales (L) on the right of Fig. 1 from tan(ψ) = (10/L), where ψ is the elevation angle and L is the horizontal distance from the zenith point above the observer. To estimate distances from left to right across the image use the portion of the scale centered at the appropriate elevation angle. As the elevation angle decreases one sees that the spacing of the cloud lines 1 and 2 is ≈5 km regardless of the angle of view. In short, they are parallel to one another; their apparent convergence is due only to perspective. The same is true for the other cloud lines. We shall discuss the size of the cloud elements later.

This is even further down the page.

3. Interpretation
a. Contrail orientation and spacing
From the Figs. 1, 2 and 3a we have seen that the contrails are oriented toward the northeast. Their spacing is ≈4–5 km. The motion of the base of the fallstreaks is toward ≈58°, consistent with the winds at and below the generating level, and the orientation of the bands.

The horizontal dimension of the tufts in line 1 is ≈1 km and their spacing is also ≈1 km regardless of ψ. The older contrail clouds in line 2 have dimensions of ≈1 by 2 km at all ψ. And the largest dimension of the ice crystal fallstreaks are typically 2 km wide. Similarly, we have seen that all of the prior cloud lines (1, 2, 3) are parallel to one another although their spacing depends upon their relative age, that is, the time between successive aircraft flights.

See the article in the link for more reading. I am still trying to understand some of the graphs and charts.

Here is figure 1 pic... Under part a.... Photograph
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1887bf74c30b.gif[/atsimg]


Here is figure 2 pic... Under part b... satellite observations.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/873c13d9050f.gif[/atsimg]
journals.ametsoc.org...

As I stated, I thought this was interesting for the "chemmy" battle, I mean debate. That is exacly how I see it. Please post your thoughts on this information. I will not belittle you. Just please do not belittle me. I have serious doubts and questions on the whole chemtrail conspiracy. This is my opinion and I thought I would share my findings with everyone. If this has been posted the I apologize.

Please tell me what you think.....

Thank you for reading, LJ01

One more thing I think the chemtrail thing is out of control. I thought I would add to some of the chaos.

S&F

Tons of data indeed. Apparently, the condensation trails are being studied in great detail. Fascinating.

The put bans on cars that omit too much carbon dioxide. What about these planes? Millions of cars and plants cause smog, there are laws for such pollution. Who will put a law on these planes. I have seen these trails left by planes turn into "clouds". How many of our clouds are currently fake?
I am a person who always gives the benefit of the doubt to people, if I was to do it here in this situation it would go like this: Maybe our clouds are disappearing and the governments are putting fake clouds in the sky to keep us from UV exposure.
But, I doubt this.
Maybe all these "new" clouds are causing much of the chaos in the sky, lightning, thunder and snow at once. Rumblings in the sky, this might be Mother nature's way of saying, what is this garbage and interacting with these clouds.

Originally posted by greenfox83
The put bans on cars that omit too much carbon dioxide. What about these planes?

Hopefully, very few people get to breath atmospheric air at 33,000 ft.

Again I have to say, where were these things pre 1990s? The skies weren't this bad until then, I know because I've been an amateur astronomer-sky watcher all my life. It gets worse as the years go by. We are still waiting for a decent explanation as to their sudden full-on appearances.

reply to post by buddhasystem


Exactly, by the time it reaches sea level (if ever) it has completely dissipated, there is also a lot of research in cleaner burning jet engines too, not just contrails, although the two will often go hand in hand for obvious reasons.

I think most (all?) chemtrail believers don't even realise this, everything in the contrail/chemtrail stays up there, if it came down it would be like being in a cloud.

reply to post by JibbyJedi


Best you do a search for pre-90's contrails, plenty of pictures and links have been posted on ATS before.

Have you even looked?

As for why there's so many more now than the 90's?

Think of the obvious answer, as it's the correct answer...

Here's a hint:

reply to post by JibbyJedi


Try researching "contrail persistence studies - (this is the minus sign)chemtrails". There are 17,400 hits, most of them scholarly, many of them older than 10 years. Many of the leading studies are put together by several people who have been studying the physical properties of contrails for decades.....they have made a career of it. The real experts about the white lines in the sky.
Or you can go to Contrail Science and see pictures of them from very far back. There are several pages of information and pictures from back before WW2. With pictures.
Contrail Science
I am 50 in a few weeks, and my dad flew to work each week for most of my childhood. I saw persistent contrails back then, because I had cause to notice....wondering if my dad was on one of those planes or not.
The first contrail prediction scale, Appleman's was published in 1957. That's over 50 years ago.
Seek and ye shall find. Seek knowledge about "chemtrails" and you will find information only from the beginning of the internet as a form of mass information, just over a decade ago. Coincidence? I think not.....

reply to post by Chadwickus


According to that graph, air travel has increased 50%. These trails use to show up maybe once per month pre 90s, I use to notice them, very rare occurrences based on atmospheric levels that were conducive for them to be sustained.
They have not increased 50%, it's more like 1000% (not an exact figure so lay off). This graph does not show worldwide increases because it varies per country. ALL countries are reporting an increase in these, air travel hasn't increased THAT much in most of these countries...many, but not most.

reply to post by stars15k


Contrail Science? Are you serious? I'd trust a DOT.GOV website before I trust anything from them.
I'm not a rookie with these things myself, I've researched all sides of the argument and there are still many holes and a lot of psychological defensiveness coming from the debunkers that doesn't make me feel comfortable with their "facts".

People seem to forget that ANY expert on any topic can be paid to publish anything he's paid to publish, or say on TV. I don't trust most people on this planet of greed and power mongers, I believe what comes from the heart, not the tainted mind. These trails are purposeful, and not doing any good to this planet or us.

This is the part that I thought was most interesting. I have always thought that the most likely explanation for chemtrail flights were experiments at creating artificial clouds with the intent on controlling global temperatures/weather.

American Meteorological Society Journal

4. Remarks—Climatic impact

It is interesting that the mean optical depth found in this case (0.35) corresponds to that found in climatological satellite measurements by Ponater et al. (2002) and Minnis et al. (2004), and that the microphysical properties are consistent with a wide range of observations and models by prior authors. Accordingly, it is appropriate to speculate on their effect on climate.

The issue of the impact of contrail-generated cirrus (CS) on climate change has been treated by a number of investigators. Sassen (1997) suggested that the unusually small particles typical of many persistent contrails might favor the albedo cooling over the greenhouse warming. Using a 2D mesoscale cloud model Khvorostyanov and Sassen (1998) computed the distribution of the mean crystal radius, concentration, and ice water content of a contrail after 30 min of development. They found a twofold effect. At the surface, the net greenhouse minus albedo effect was negative with a cooling of 15 W m−2. However, at the top of the atmosphere (corresponding to the entire atmospheric column), the net effect was a warming of 8 W m−2. We note that the latter simulation for the early stage of the cloud produced very large concentrations of small crystals and that the longwave warming would be increased relative to the shortwave cooling with the much larger particles, such as found in the present study.

reply to post by AllSeeingI

I have always thought that the most likely explanation for chemtrail flights were experiments at creating artificial clouds with the intent on controlling global temperatures/weather.

They're saying persistent contrails do increase temperatures in the troposphere, which was proven when all flights were grounded after 9/11.

We're talking 0.27°C a decade in localised areas here.

Pretty crappy method for controlling weather and temperatures.

Just so you know too, the contrails viewed and being discussed in this article are commercial flights...

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
reply to post by Chadwickus

 

According to that graph, air travel has increased 50%. These trails use to show up maybe once per month pre 90s, I use to notice them, very rare occurrences based on atmospheric levels that were conducive for them to be sustained.
They have not increased 50%, it's more like 1000% (not an exact figure so lay off).

Well if you can't put a decent estimate on the number you claim, why bother arguing?

Also, did it occur to you that there may be a new air traffic corridor open in the areas where you do your observations?

Originally posted by buddhasystem

Originally posted by greenfox83
The put bans on cars that omit too much carbon dioxide. What about these planes?

Hopefully, very few people get to breath atmospheric air at 33,000 ft.

Yes but the effect of CO2 at high altitude on global warming is considered by the IPCC to be 2-4 times as much as at sea level - see en.wikipedia.org...

and remember that aircraft are generateing this pollution EVEN IF YOU CAN'T SEE THE CONTRAILS!!

Of course a/c generate a lot less emisions now - the drive for efficiency in a/c engins has been phenomenal - roughly speaking the cost of operating an a/c over its lifetime is about 1/3rd fuel, 1/3rd capital costs, 1/3rd maintenance. Crew costs are a small % although substantial in absolute terms.

so a/c engine and airframe companies have gone to massive efforts to get small % decreases in fuel burn - a 1% decrease can amount to millions of $$'s per aircraft for large jets - this diagram gives you some idea how they have progressed since hte early days -

web.mit.edu...

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
reply to post by stars15k

 

Contrail Science? Are you serious? I'd trust a DOT.GOV website before I trust anything from them.

why?

I'm not a rookie with these things myself, I've researched all sides of the argument and there are still many holes and a lot of psychological defensiveness coming from the debunkers that doesn't make me feel comfortable with their "facts".

If you've done the research then you should bde able to confirm or refute such "facts" from your own studies. Waht is it that is wrong with "their facts"?

People seem to forget that ANY expert on any topic can be paid to publish anything he's paid to publish, or say on TV.

which applies to everyone - not jsut one side of the "argument".

contrails Science collates informatin dating back as far as 1905 - when is it you think that people might have been started to get paid for creating any facts you think are dodgy?

I don't trust most people on this planet of greed and power mongers, I believe what comes from the heart, not the tainted mind.

Can't agree with you there. Hearts are for emotions - not facts - emotions might be good for motivating people to do things, but htey are completely irrelevant to determining whether or not facts are correct.

These trails are purposeful, and not doing any good to this planet or us.

Yes they are purposeful - jets always fly S high as possible - it's economics - they save a heap of money doing so. High altitude means more contrails - therefore it is quite deliberate.

And yes, it is polution and is not doing the planet any good.

but neither of those points we agree on are evidence of a conspiracy to do anything other than generate profit from air travel.

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
Again I have to say, where were these things pre 1990s? The skies weren't this bad until then, I know because I've been an amateur astronomer-sky watcher all my life. It gets worse as the years go by. We are still waiting for a decent explanation as to their sudden full-on appearances.

Are you kidding me? I just gogled World War Two contrail pictures and there are alot of these pics. This is just a few.

1953
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2ea1f01618d4.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9ee3f678eb9e.jpg[/atsimg]

Here is one in the Phillipines
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3906774f8bb1.jpg[/atsimg]


Contrails are nothing new. All you have to do is look at unbiased infomation. Not information coming from a source with an agenda to spread false acusations.

Thank you all for replying.

I figure this thread would turn out this way. Real science, real studies, and real information is overlooked on ATS.
It was not my intention of perfoming a hit and run thread. Sorry It took me a little while to reply. I just knew that real info would be overlooked by those who wish to believe in false truth's and spread information with no scientific backing. You cannot refute the studies when it is scientifically perfomed in this way. This subject is like beating a dead horse. As I have said before the damn horse is nothing but mush by now.

I appreciate your interpretation of some of these findings Chadwickus. To the other posters instead of making 10 or so replies that say I agree, I just starred you. I was hoping that some of the believers in chemtrails would take a little something from this study. But I guess not.

Thank you
Lj01

reply to post by JibbyJedi


use common sense--almost everyday--always starting just after sunrise--with normal planes flying around with NO CHEM-TRAILS BEHIND THEM Wake up people its a global dimming project for global warming--
if ya heat up the atmosphere the inside of the planet would absorb some of that heat--plus the heating of the air around the world would act as insulation for the furnese inside of the planet!!!!!!!! EXPANSION!!!!!
this would cause expantion and plate lifting which then we will get earthquakes and increased volcano activity --ARE WE NOT SEEING THIS NOW???
If your young you are F***ed

reply to post by itsawild1


I used common sense - I went and found out a bit about the science of the atmosphere, applied it to known history, my long education and career as an aircraft mechanic, the complete lack of actual evidence for "chemtrails", and came to a conclusion that says you don't know what you are talking about.