15 May 2002

Airplanes Alter Climate

“Scientists have long suspected that airplane condensation trails — the wispy, white tails found in the wake of high-flying jets — form larger cloud banks that substantially alter the atmosphere’s heat balance..... [T]he FAA grounded commercial flights nationwide for three days following the terrorist air attacks... and now it has emerged that the American climate was indeed noticeably different during those three days without air travel. This research provides one of the strongest indicators that air travel itself changes our climate.” Read the article on Wired.