IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v397y1999i6714d10.1038_16169.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Air traffic may increase cirrus cloudiness

Author

Listed:
  • Olivier Boucher

    (Laboratoire d'Optique Atmosphérique, U.F.R. de Physique)

Abstract

High-level cirrus clouds can evolve1, 2 from the condensation trails of aircraft, which form as the mixture of warm, humid exhaust gases and colder, drier air exceeds water saturation3. In addition, the particles in exhaust plumes from aircraft may allow ice nucleation at lower supersaturations than those required under natural conditions4. This mechanism is sensitive to environmental conditions, but may occur downstream of the exhaust aerosol source regions. Here I show that cirrus clouds increased in occurrence and coverage in the main air-traffic flight corridors between 1982 and 1991.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivier Boucher, 1999. "Air traffic may increase cirrus cloudiness," Nature, Nature, vol. 397(6714), pages 30-31, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:397:y:1999:i:6714:d:10.1038_16169
    DOI: 10.1038/16169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/16169
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/16169?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:397:y:1999:i:6714:d:10.1038_16169. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.