Is the non-mitigation of contrails a deliberate policy?
1) I think it is a deliberate policy decision (a slow roll) to not mitigate the increase in the number, frequency, and persistence of trails and cirrus cloud banks . . .Originally Posted by Noble1965
2) I think the high efficiency engines have produced a new species of contrail which is contributing to the situation
3) I also think the marked up skies are good cover for any experimentation which could leave visible evidence . . .
The only thing guaranteed in life is deception. . . everything else is optional . . . George B
1) I disagree. I see no reason for them to do any such thing. Unless they want to appease some kooks on the internet.
2) A contrail is a contrail is a contrail. Be definition. The only thing that is different, is the amount of water vapor produced, and how that added vapor reacts with the atmosphere. The trail itself is a contrail. There is no debate.
3) Of course you do. I understand why. But, I disagree because I think it's speculation and assumption based on a "different" world view.
Other than your intuition, do you have any evidence to support your speculation?
If you mean have the policy makers said . . . we are trying to stall implementing persistent contrail mitigation to accomplish a particular goal . . . of course they have not . . . but if you look at the wealth of mitigation strategies over the years and the simple low cost methods to make aircrews aware of their contrail status . . . one is left with the question why has nothing practical been done . . . ?
The only thing guaranteed in life is deception. . . everything else is optional . . . George B
So, the answer is NO...you have no evidence per se...just a feeling.
Simply making aircrews "aware" of their contrails status isn't mitigation. Knowing that you are leaving contrail doesn't tell you how long it will persist nor is there anything you can necessarily do about it...It could be a deep pocket of saturated air such that altering your altitude slightly isn't enough...and descending to lower alt to avoid contrails costs more $$ in fuel.
Nothing practical has been done because global coordination of any sort is extremely difficult:
http://www.neurope.eu/blog/carbon-em...friendly-skies
I was hoping I wouldn't need to do this, but here it is. Some definitions for the word 'evidence': here's one, the number 1 spot in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (based on historical principles) - and it's not that short, let me tell you, it's on my lap and it weighs about 5 kilos, here's that meaning: evidence 1. The quality or condition of being evident. 2. Manifestation 3. That which makes evident; an indication, mark, trace 4. Example 5. Ground for belief...
Is there really 'no evidence' ?
Last edited by lee h oswald; March 9th, 2012 at 12:27 PM.
So the answer is YES....there's loads of evidence...irrespective of 'feelings'
Indeed.
Absence of action is not a quality or condition of being evident nor a manifestation of a deliberate policy decision to allow contrails to persist.
Huh? I buy potatoes grown in Egypt; garlic from Spain and Israel: bananas from African sources; lamb from New Zealand. What on earth are you talking about? Global coordination of all sorts is the norm - where have you been?!
You are correct- my bad. I should have said global coordination of THIS sort.
Global commerce is easy.
global regulation? ...not so much.
The absence of action is evident in itself. How much more evident does it have to be before it constitutes evidence? You say, unequivocally, it is not 'a manifestation of a deliberate policy decision to allow contrails to persist.' Now show me the money. Where's your 'evidence' for this assertion? Is it based on a lack of evidence to the contrary? Therefore using the 'absence of something is not evidence' thing, only in reverse. Skeptopathy, think about it. What are you a party to that lets you say this with such conviction?
George B (March 9th, 2012)
Look up Codex Alimentarius - it's a 'global food standard' (sound like regulation?) administered by two UN agencies in 183 (if I remember right) countries. That's almost the entire world. It was written by a man called Fritz ter Meer, a German 'industrialist' high up in IG Farben, the Nazi conglommerate of BASF, Bayer and others, who followed the armies around the place and took over the infrastructure of the conquered countries, putting their people to work as slave labour. IG Farben had a chemical factory at IG Buna (Auschwitz); there is still one there to this day. Anyway, when Fritz was convicted of 'plunder and enslavement' at the second (not so well publicised) hearings at Nuremburg, he was sentenced to 7 (seven) years for his crimes. After being released early, like all the 'industrialists' on trial were (or 'not being jailed at all' was the other penalty for taking part in all that mayhem), Fritz ter Meer took his jailhouse writings to the UN for a proposal - He had created a plan to document and categorize every item of food in a method based on an old Austrian and WW1 German army system. The UN accepted his plan and Fritz got himself a new pair of shoes and a new suit and went straight back to his job on the board of Bayer (pharmaceutical, they're still doing all right today), he subsequently became chairman of the company. Check it out and you'll find that is all correct. I can give you a lot more examples of 'global regulation' if you want.
Last edited by lee h oswald; March 9th, 2012 at 01:24 PM.
Is it not at all reasonable that governments are not doing anything about contrails because there is simply no need to?
No doing something is not really "doing" something that.
Not building a dam in a river is not the same as blowing up a dam in a river.
I think it's highly specious to suggest that the inaction of the government in an area that needs no action is somehow part of a vast conspiracy. Not doing things is something the government does very well, with very little effort, and no thought.
Noble1965 (March 9th, 2012)
I said difficult- not impossible.
Can you find any examples where global consensus on regulations was not easy to achieve or in fact, failed to be achieved?
Last edited by SR1419; March 9th, 2012 at 01:36 PM.
My intuition.
Absence of action is not evident in itself of deliberate policy toward a the purposeful outcome of contrail persistence.
The second point is well taken though...here, I'll amend the statement:
Absence of action does not appear to me to be a manifestation of a deliberate policy decision to allow contrails to persist.
I do not see how a lack of coordination and consensus can then be construed as deliberate policy.
Conspiracism- think about it.
Last edited by SR1419; March 9th, 2012 at 01:35 PM.
I think the difficulty of global coordination of regulation of contrails is a bit of a red herring. It could always be done at a local scale first, like most emissions regulations.
The reason it is not done is that there's no compelling case for doing it.
There might be arguable reasons for NOT doing, like the uncertainty of the effect of a sudden jump on diurnal temperature variations. But I don't really think anyone has ever brought that up.
No, you didn't say that anywhere, except just now. You said: global regulation? ...not so much.Which is a bit defferent. If you're going to make a convincing argument you better remember what your argument is.
Fail.
My exact words:
"Nothing practical has been done because global coordination of any sort is extremely difficult"
A list of mitigation strategies, their source and dates of publication would be good . . . it is a good starting point to see if there is sufficient interest, knowledge and support for such efforts . . .
The only thing guaranteed in life is deception. . . everything else is optional . . . George B
NinthUSA/Europe Air Traffic Management Research and Development Seminar (ATM2011)
Design of Aircraft Trajectories based on
Trade-offs between Emission Sources
BanavarSridhar and Neil Y. Chen Hok K. Ng
NASA Ames Research Center University of California
MoffettField, CA, USA Santa Cruz, CA, USA
FlorianLinke
DLR-GermanAerospace Center
Hamburg,Germany
http://www.aviationsystemsdivision.a...11_Sridhar.pdf
Abstract – Aviation operations affect theclimate in several
ways. Carbon dioxide, water vaporand other greenhouse
gasses are unavoidable by-productof the combustion of
fossil fuel. There are indicationsthat persistent contrails
can lead to adverse climatechange, although the complete
effect on climate forcing is stilluncertain. A flight
trajectory optimization algorithmwith fuel and contrails
models, which develops alternativeflight paths, provides
policy makers the necessary datato make trade-offs
between persistent contrails mitigationand aircraft fuel
consumption. This study developsan algorithm that
calculates wind-optimaltrajectories for cruising aircraft
while reducing the amount of timespent in regions of
airspace prone to persistentcontrails formation. The
optimal trajectories are developedby solving a non-linear
optimal control problem with pathconstraints. The
regions of airspace favorable topersistent contrails
formation are modeled as penaltyareas that aircraft
should avoid. The trade-offbetween persistent contrails
formation and additional fuelconsumption is investigated
for 12 city-pairs in thecontinental United States. The
avoidance of contrails using onlyhorizontal maneuvers
results in a small reduction ofcontrails with increasing
fuel consumption. When both horizontal maneuvers and
altitude are optimized, a 2% increase in total fuel
consumption can reduce the total travel times through
contrail regions by more than 70%. Allowing further
increase in fuel consumption does not seem to result in
proportionate reduction in contrail travel times. This
trend is maintained even in thepresence of uncertainties
in the contrail formation regionssuch as uncertainties in
relative humidity values computedby weather forecast
models.
Last edited by George B; March 9th, 2012 at 02:02 PM.
The only thing guaranteed in life is deception. . . everything else is optional . . . George B
Are fuel additives a viable contrail mitigation option?
Klaus Gierens
Institut fu¨ r Physik der Atmospha¨ re, Deutsches Zentrum fu¨ r Luft- und Raumfahrt, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Received 8 January 2007; received in revised form 9 March 2007; accepted 13 March 2007
http://aero-net.info/fileadmin/aeron...ive_cirrus.pdf
"Fuel additives have been proposed as a potential mitigation option for contrails. They could change the thermodynamic
conditions necessary for contrail formation in a way that makes contrail formation more difficult than with standard
kerosene fuel. Here I show how additives could affect contrail formation, and I conclude that fuel additives are not a useful
way to avoid contrails."
It 'does not appear to me' does not constitute 'evidence', does it? And neither does 'I do not see'. What and where is this evidence you keep saying is lacking on the other side to support your 'it does not appear to me' and 'I do not see'? Show me the money. Where's your evidence for these assertions?My intuition.
Absence of action does not appear to me to be a manifestation of a deliberate policy decision to allow contrails to persist.
I do not see how a lack of... can then be construed as deliberate policy.
Conspiracism- think about it.
You really can't see when 'a lack of' might construe a deliberate policy? I'll give you a chance to answer that one.
Conspiracism? I don't really understand what that is. I can tell you what a conspiracy is though. It's an agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful, subversive or wrongful act. Now, your newspaper and news itrems every day cover conspiracy stories, we've been brought up on conspiracies because it's what a lot of humans get up to. They conspire: read the paper. A little history tells us that Jesus himself was the victim of....a conspiracy....Julius Caesar - et tu Brute? The historical list is endless. More commonplace:Bank robbers, muggers, financial thieves, phone tappers, murderers, everyone ever in a gang, lots of policemen...how long do you need the list to be before you can see that conspiracy is everywhere. It's no surprise everyone behaves this way given the example set from the 'top'. You really shouldn't use the word in this incorrect way.
Last edited by lee h oswald; March 9th, 2012 at 02:06 PM.
Of course you don't:
Conspiracism
"Conspiracism is a narrative form of scapegoating that portrays an enemy as part of a vast insidious plot against the common good. Conspiracism assigns tiny cabals of evildoers a superhuman power to control events, frames social conflict as part of a transcendent struggle between Good and Evil, and makes leaps of logic, such as guilt by association, in analyzing evidence. Conspiracists often employ common fallacies of logic in analyzing factual evidence to assert connections, causality, and intent that are frequently unlikely or nonexistent.... "
http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/
Last edited by SR1419; March 9th, 2012 at 02:40 PM.
So you haven't actually got any evidence then. It really is just your intuition?
The engineeringoptions for mitigating the climate impacts of aviation
1. VictoriaWilliams*
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.o...1861/3047.full
Changes to ANS are typically developed toaddress capacity constraints, to improve safety or to reduce workload or cost.Some measures will have direct fuel efficiency benefits. The development of newsystems and concepts for air navigation will also offer new opportunities foralternative approaches to be considered, potentially targeting the non-carbonimpacts. In particular, the impacts of both nitrogen oxides and contrails couldbe reduced with more flexibility in the selection of flight trajectories andbetter awareness of background atmospheric conditions (Grewe etal. 2002; Williams& Noland 2005). In the case of contrail, the layer of air to beavoided is on average only 500 m thick (Spichtingeretal. 2003), so only small changes in altitude would berequired (Mannsteinetal. 2005).
(c) Meteorological services
Improved communication systems could automate the exchange of weather information. This could improve the pre-flight planning offuel-optimal flight profiles, taking account of wind conditions, and could contribute to in-flight profile adjustments. Enhanced meteorological services would also be an essential part of any policy to reduce or avoid contrail and cirrus formation, as accurate information on the size and location of contrailformation regions would need to be exchanged between pilots and controllers todetermine the diversions required.
Last edited by George B; March 9th, 2012 at 02:19 PM.
The only thing guaranteed in life is deception. . . everything else is optional . . . George B
Indeed I can see when it might construe a deliberate policy...but not in the case of contrail mitigation- when there is no census on the effects of contrails to begin with and no consensus on effective mitigation...
No, if I can't find it in my Shorter OED....
It's Kafka all over again...'conspiracism'? It's a word which isn't a word; is that why you had to find someone's made up definition? it has no definition, only the one you want to imbue it with. When you make mention of logical fallacies and can't see the cracks under your feet...you have a belief as virulent and immovable as a religious zealot. If someone came in your living room and sprayed an aerosol in your face you'd probably still find some reason to excuse it as perfectly reasonable. Can you not see the cracks?
No - the evidence is lack of consensus of contrail net effects, lack of consensus of mitigation techniques, lack of formal policy discussions by intra-national and/or international bodies that are in a position to implement any mitigation.
Oh thats rich...could you please look up "Skeptopathy" in your OED?
thanks!
OK. Can you give me, say, five examples of when 'a lack of' has actually been a deliberate policy?
no..
Since when has a lack of consensus been unmanageable by a bit of propaganda? Can you think of a recent example? How about Iraq, under the cosh for twenty plus years, since then - 4.5million dead, countless maimed, 4million displaced, epidemic of mental illness, increase in cancers from use of uranium weapons, infrastructure destroyed, environment contaminated....can you tell me why Iraq was invaded?
Lack of consensus is a minor consideration for those in power, but not from the point of view of what's best for Joe Public, but what's best for them and their owners. It has to be managed sometimes. If consensus needs to be manipulated, it will be. Marketing, PR, propaganda, it's all the same and it's in your face all day long.
but that opinion still does not bring evidence to bear that lack of contrail mitigation is a deliberate policy decision.
These are airplanes creating the aerosol through hydrocarbon combustion.....just as BILLIONS of sources at ground level you are probably fine with...Including ANYTHING with an engine...and oil furnaces and water heaters.
Just because the source of combustion is 30,000 feet above us is no reason to be more upset about it...
Not only that..there are TRILLIONS of sources of "aerosols" (by definition) on the planet which include every chemical/element you have ever heard of. And the one thing you can complain about is water vapor from jet airplanes? Can you not see how silly that is?
http://www.mendeley.com/research/a-n...ntrail-cirrus/
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment (2005)
Volume: 10, Issue: 5, Pages: 421-426
ISSN: 13619209
DOI: 10.1016/j.trd.2005.04.012
Available from linkinghub.elsevier.com
or Find this paper at:
Abstract
Aircraft induced cirrus clouds have a major effect on climate. Here we use operational radiosonde data with high vertical resolution to estimate the effect of a small change in flight altitudes on the contrail and cirrus formation. It is shown that a substantial fraction of contrails and contrail induced cirrus can be avoided by relatively small changes in flight level, due to the shallowness of ice-super-saturation layers.
The only thing guaranteed in life is deception. . . everything else is optional . . . George B
Seems like a problem to me as lee h Oswald has indicated . . .
http://www.mendeley.com/research/air...cirrus-europe/
Aircraft induced contrail cirrus over Europe
by Hermann Mannstein, Ulrich Schumann
Earth Sciences › Miscellaneous Papers
Abstract
Condensation trails (contrails) and aircraft induced cirrus are nowadays a common feature at the mid latitude skies. Previously the impact of aircraft induced cirrus changes has been roughly estimated from observed decadal trends in cirrus cover but the direct attribution of observed cirrus changes to changes in aviation activity remains uncertain. In this paper the amount of additional cirrus induced from spreading contrails in humid air is estimated from the direct correlation between observed cirrus cover derived with suitable methods from METEOSAT data and aviation flight density reported by EUROCONTROL at high spatial and temporal resolution from June 22 to July 27, 1998 and September 27 to October 21, 2000. The results indicate that the aircraft induced cirrus cover over Europe is about ten times larger than that of linear contrails in the same region. Radiative forcing from the additional cirrus may be more than 10 times higher than that of linear contrails and aviation induced CO2 increases.
The only thing guaranteed in life is deception. . . everything else is optional . . . George B
I think all you are arguing here is that you think that something should be done to reduce the amount of persistent contrails.
Now if you could find a bunch of people who also argue this, and who have been unable to get the government to do anything, then maybe you'll have a case that they are deliberately not doing it.
So, who is calling for the government to take action to reduce contrails?
There are petitions on the Internet asking for the elimination of CHEMTRAILs. . . .I submit this is the same issue. . . The visible persistent contrails are thought to be CHEMTRAILs by these petitioners. . . .
The only thing guaranteed in life is deception. . . everything else is optional . . . George B
Well if I thought that that contrails were poison, or covert geoengineering, then I'd petition for them to be stopped too.
That's a non-argument. You can't just be saying it's suspicious that the government ignores chemtrailers misconceptions about contrails.
firepilot (March 9th, 2012)
Why then are they studying ways to mitigate contrails, I wonder?
ATM Contrail Mitigation Options - Environmental Study
http://www.eurocontrol.int/eec/galle...on_Options.pdf
A Review of Various Strategies for Contrail Avoidance
www.benthamscience.com/open/toascj/articles/V002/1TOASCJ.pdf
Mick (March 9th, 2012)
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