Contrail facts for kids
Contrails are condensation trails (sometimes vapour trails): artificial clouds made by the exhaust of jet aircraft or wingtip vortices which precipitate a stream of tiny ice crystals in moist, frigid upper air. They are the cloud-like trails of water vapour that can be seen in the wake of airplanes, either from their exhaust or sometimes from their wing tips.
Contrail creation
Contrails are created in one of two ways:
1. Firstly, the airplane's exhaust increases the amount of moisture in the air, which can push the water content of the air past saturation point (see saturation or dew point). This causes condensation to occur, and the contrail to form.
2. The wings of an airplane causes a drop in air pressure in the vicinity of the wing (this is partly what allows a plane to fly). This drop in air pressure brings with it a drop in temperature, which can cause water to condense out of the air and form a contrail. Exhaust contrails tend to be more stable and long-lasting than wing-tip contrails, which are often disrupted by the aircraft's wake.
NASA experiment; Sept 11 2001
_15.02.11_(5446601614).jpg)
In 1998, NASA scientists found that by circling a jet off the Pacific coast of the United States they were able to create contrails that eventually coalesced into a cirrus cloud covering 1,400 mile² (3,600 km²). Satellite photographs have confirmed that on one occasion jet contrails produced by commercial aircraft over New Mexico formed a cloud covering 13,000 mile² (34,000 km²).
It had been hypothesized that in regions such as the United States with heavy air traffic, contrails affected the weather, reducing solar heating during the day and radiation of heat during the night by increasing the albedo. The suspension of air travel for 3 days in the United States after September 11, 2001 provided an opportuntity to test this hypothesis. Measurements did in fact show that without contrails the local diurnal temperature range (difference of day and night temperatures) was about 1 degree Celsius higher than immediately before. The chemtrail conspiracy theory claims that these trails may contain harmful chemicals being sprayed by government organizations.
Images for kids
-
Contrails of a Boeing 747-400 from Qantas at 11,000 m (36,000 ft)
-
A vintage P-40 Warhawk with propeller tip vortex condensation
-
MODIS tracking of contrails generated by air traffic over the southeastern United States
-
The sky above Würzburg without contrails after air travel disruption in 2010 (left) and with regular air traffic and the right conditions (right)
-
A distrail is the opposite of a contrail
-
Multiple contrails above Nova Scotia
-
Contrails formed due to two jets crossing over
-
Airliner contrails, some new, some old, dispersed by wind shear
-
A contrail over southwest Virginia
-
A contrail casting a shadow onto a lower cloud layer
-
Airplane contrail
-
Over the City of Culture of Galicia
-
Distrail – a narrow line of clearance produced by a passing airplane, here produced in a patch of thin cirrostratus.
-
Wiki Commons description page]])
-
Iridescent contrails from a Boeing 747, when the sun shines through a group of similarly sized water droplets at a relatively small angle
-
An Airbus A340 of Lufthansa produces contrails
-
Contrails in front of the sun
-
Engine exhaust contrails behind an Airbus A340 from Swiss International Air Lines
-
B-17 bombers over Europe, 1944
-
USAAF 8th Air Force B-17s and their contrails
-
The unique Antonov 225 had distinctive sextuple vapor trails
-
Virga falling from contrail
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg){kind=small}
See also
In Spanish: Estela de condensación para niños
