Some contrails can contribute to global warming. Contrails—pure ice clouds (“cirrus”) that form from aircraft exhaust under specific cold conditions—can trap heat in the atmosphere, sometimes creating ...

Those white vapor trails crisscrossing the sky carry a hidden climate price tag comparable to the damage from jet fuel itself. Research from Chalmers University of Technology reveals that aviation ...

Suggested Citation: "1 Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Developing a Research Agenda on Contrails and Their Climate Impacts. Washington, DC: The National ...

Contrails conjure a sense of something overwhelming and ineffable, as terrifying as it is beautiful. By Kate Folk I spend most days working from home, in my apartment in San Francisco’s Richmond ...

Four research figures show how contrails appear in two satellite views (left) and two photographs taken from the MIT Green Building. Aviation’s climate impact is partly due to contrails — condensation ...