076/366: Air Traffic [Uncertain Principles]

It was a cool clear morning when I took Emmy out for our morning walk, with a band of high clouds running eat-west across the sky to our north. After watching a bit, I realized that these were probably entirely seeded by jet contrails, as I saw at least four planes flying along that band during the walk.

This shot catches one of them (the big band crosses the frame diagonally at lower right), plus a second running parallel to it but a bit farther south, and a third crossing them:

Contrails crossing in the northern sky.

I’m guessing this must be a route from Boston to points west, possibly even a corridor for European flights to Chicago and Detroit. Whatever it is, there’s a ton of air traffic up there.

Back in 2002, after the September 11 attacks shut down all air travel for the better part of a week, I remember reading stories about how there was a substantial increase in the amount of sunlight reaching the ground thanks to the loss of airplane-created clouds. That always seemed kind of surprising, but watching all those planes this morning makes it a lot more clearly plausible.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1SSJmfV

It was a cool clear morning when I took Emmy out for our morning walk, with a band of high clouds running eat-west across the sky to our north. After watching a bit, I realized that these were probably entirely seeded by jet contrails, as I saw at least four planes flying along that band during the walk.

This shot catches one of them (the big band crosses the frame diagonally at lower right), plus a second running parallel to it but a bit farther south, and a third crossing them:

Contrails crossing in the northern sky.

I’m guessing this must be a route from Boston to points west, possibly even a corridor for European flights to Chicago and Detroit. Whatever it is, there’s a ton of air traffic up there.

Back in 2002, after the September 11 attacks shut down all air travel for the better part of a week, I remember reading stories about how there was a substantial increase in the amount of sunlight reaching the ground thanks to the loss of airplane-created clouds. That always seemed kind of surprising, but watching all those planes this morning makes it a lot more clearly plausible.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1SSJmfV