Most of us first spot them as children—the white lines in the blue sky that are the telltale sign of a flight overhead. Contrails are an instant visual reminder of air travel, and a source of much …
That article was way more interesting than I expected.
Unfortunately, contrails tend to have a warming effect. While they increase the amount of sunlight reflected away from Earth, they ultimate trap more heat in the atmosphere than they bounce away.
It might sound like a minor thing, but the science suggests their warming impact is likely larger than that of fossil fuel emissions from global aviation operations. One study performed in 2018 suggested that contrails are doing more to heat up the Earth than all the CO2 emitted by aviation since 1940.
That article was way more interesting than I expected.
That was particularly surprising.
That can safely be ignored then