Possible climatic effects of contrails and additional water vapour

Grassl, H.

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-51686-3_8

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Possible climatic effects of contrails and additional water vapour

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Grassl, H. (1990). Possible climatic effects of contrails and additional water vapour. In U. Schumann (Ed.), Air Traffic and the Environment — Background, Tendencies and Potential Global Atmospheric Effects: Proceedings of a DLR International Colloquium, Bonn, Germany, November 15/16, 1990 (pp. 124-137). Heidelberg: Springer.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000A-25C5-E

Abstract

The importance of contrails in the upper troposphere and of additional water vapour in the lower stratosphere, both the result of aircraft emissions, for the radiation budget of the surface/atmosphere system is roughly assessed. The radiation flux density profiles with contrails and additional water vapour are compared to other greenhouse gas forcings. This leads to a very first order of magnitude estimate of the air traffic climate forcing potential: two percent contrail cover or air traffic induced natural cirrus may be as important for the planetary radiation budget as a 10 percent increase of present anthropogenic CO2 forcing, equivalent to six years emission of 25 Gigatons CO2 per year; additional water vapour in the lowest high northern latitude stratosphere is considerably contributing to the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere. If air traffic would cause a 10 percent increase in water vapour there this would be equivalent to up to 0.2 Wm-2 radiation budget change depending on surface temperature.