Go Seven Miles North, then Turn Straight up for Another Seven Miles

A sky full of of aviaticus clouds is exciting, the same sky without aviaticus clouds/contrails is beautifully relaxing.  During this weekend's aviaticus events I drove north just 7 miles from the edge of central Wisconsin's long used east west flight corridor. Just a short distance, the equivalent between me and the typical overhead jet and everything changes. The area goes from ag land to forest, the sky goes from cirrus and aviaticus clouds to cirrus and blue. From an open area where you can see the weather to the south and north, to just being able to see the weather overhead because my destination is surround by trees. It is nice for a change to look up and not see an aircraft streaking out a plum, where I automatically go into analysis mode estimating altitude, width of the trail, watching to see if the trail dissipates or becomes permanent or if it will spread, if so. which direction it drifts. Curious, I might check the flight software to see its altitude, type of aircraft, speed and destination, perhaps seeing another aircraft tracking in the same direction with only a needle-like short-lived trail and then I feel the need to quickly verify that the altitudes are different as the vertical depth of the ice saturated air in which a permanent aviaticus has formed is quite thin, perhaps a 1000'. Yep, it was nice just a few miles north of the flyway, looking up and seeing none of this and not being able to see what was going on in the south along the flyway because the trees block that view. I just go back to my tasks, not distracted by what has now become an unfamiliar spring Sky, the sky of my distant childhood. The only thought that may slip into my mind while I am north, are the clouds I am seeing natural, aviaticus or a hybrid of the two?  But without the obvious linear shape, it is not possible to know so that thought dissipates faster than a short trail in dry/warm air and I go about enjoying the view.

The original problem posed by contrails were for military reasons.  Now the funded sciences are trying to find a solution because of the climate changing possibilities of aviaticus clouds, warming, cooling, hydrology cycle disruption or even if there is a problem, is it significant?  Aesthetics are hardly mentioned in the funded studies that I've read. Nevertheless if they successfully find a solution to this very complex residual effect of air transport, the aesthetics will follow, the naturally beautiful sky literally will follow.  

Researchers are pursuing the solutions for contrail elimination, but each contrail solution like pharmaceuticals have challenging side effects.  Will more efficient engines to reduce the soot nuclei produce greater heat or possibly more water vapor or CO2?  Flying around ice saturated air could cost more fuel, lengthen flight time, place more stress on crews, passengers and air controllers. Changing traditional flight altitude to the tropopause or lower stratosphere where the air is dryer and contrails are unlikely to form. But then the concern is for ozone depletion from the chemical emissions. Ideally short of reducing air travel, since the ice saturation sheets are thin, if they can be detected these sheets with precision, altitude adjustments of just a few thousand feet during each flight to avoid those areas could reduce aviaticus clouds to a great extent. Having at the same time more efficient engines and fuels that produce less soot nuclei would still be important. First clouds can still be formed by the sub-visual aerotrails of soot particles well after the aircraft has passed as the particles contact more humid air. Still little is known of the effects of millions of aerotrails even if no contrails are formed. Perhaps there are no negative effects,  perhaps the accumulation of these particles are having an effect on climate or health we do not yet understand or that the public is aware of.

For more on this subject please read Ulrich Schumann's 2005 published paper:

FORMATION, PROPERTIES AND CLIMATIC EFFECTS OF CONTRAILS

Contrail Reduction Strategies Using Different Weather Resources By Neil Y. Chen et al

Design of a Flight Planning System to Reduce Persistent Contrail Formation to Reduce Greenhouse Effects   By Tanveer, Gauntlett, Diaz, Yeh

Extended Aviaticus Cloud Forecast:  By Wednesday 4.22.2015 the cloud cover should begin to break and a dryer air mass should move in. Earlier Thursday the clouds should be clearing out and during this period contrails should form but decrease to short-lived whiffs by late afternoon Thursday or Friday morning.

http://theorioninitiative2.blogspot.com/2015/04/go-seven-miles-north-then-turn-straight.html

Contrail (Aviaticus Clouds) Forecast for Central Wisconsin: Great Day for Photography if You Want to Avoid Man-made Clouds

A wide swath of dry upper air slightly streak with areas of moisture but without any distinct boundary lines will be over the Wisconsin Flyway today.  We should have some hit and miss aviaticus trails tomorrow and Thursday as conditions become a bit more mixed and complex. I'll try to post an update if boundary sheets with moist air become evident.

Update: Wrong! Before noon the dry upper air pushed north and cirrus and sections of cirrostratus moved in from the a southwest front.  Only short trails were seen earlier but as the dry air was replaced small segments of persistent aviaticus clouds (contrails) were scattered about though for the most part trails remained short with quick dissipation. This continued to increase into the afternoon dividing the state into two hemispheres, the dividing line going right over my location. So looking north I would see clear skies, south thicken cirrus of both natural and aviaticus. 

A Boundary line is shown below but again the boundary sheet of moister air reaches further north of the line as this mass inches north so contrails (aviaticus clouds) and longer non-persistent trails formed.  Oddly, the meteorologist were all correct, we had sun all day as the clouds were too thin to block it. How much of the cloudiness was cirrostratus aviaticus is the question.  Natural cirrus were present in the early morning but the continual additions of nuclei to the moving boundary sheets may be the greatest factor. This is why meteorologist need to make contrail forecasts.  Sunny skies do not mean clear blue skies especially along the flight corridors.                                  

                                               Infrared Map: From NOAA Site

Moisture Map, Darker Area indicates Drier Air: From NOAA Site

From the Boundary Line Looking South into the Flyway

http://theorioninitiative2.blogspot.com/2015/04/contrail-aviaticus-clouds-forecast-for.html

Why do Contrails (cirrus aviaticus) form into milky opaque sheets (cirrostratus aviaticus)?

Never in history have we had so many airline flights.  37,000,000 scheduled flights last year and who knows how many unscheduled?  Aircraft manufactures are swamped with orders.  Contrails (aviaticus clouds) visible from the ground are common but only represent a fraction of the invisible aerosol trails (aerotrail) left by all combustion aircraft composed of a mix of small nuclei of combustion residue called Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) .  If we could somehow see each aerotrail  as we can contrails our entire view of the sky would change especially along heavily used flyways.  There we would see hundreds of persistent spreading trails and multiple layers of milky sheets everyday.

But we only see high altitude persistent contrails and milky sheets at certain times when meteorological conditions are right.

Imagine a full blue out day along a flyway, you have the aircraft but not a whiff or needle of a contrail is to be seen and it is difficult to spot the passing aircraft that you can hear.  At this time they are all laying a wide persistent aerotrail and if they were visible the sky would already be heavily streaked with other trails that had drifted into your area from flights outside your viewing area.  But back to what you are actually seeing. Later,  as the day progressed the high altitude  airliners begin  sporting short non-persistent trails and several hours later longer trails. By after noon you see segments of persistent contrails in the far horizon starting to drift into you area.  Several hours later they are closer and still intact and now some of the airliners in your flyway begin to spew thick persistent trails and even the approaching aviaticus clouds now look like natural cirrus in a lighter blue, whitish sky.  Shortly these milky clouds are covering your flyway and still the passing jets are laying thick persistent trails. From the ground view at a fixed point it appears like these aircraft are deliberately spraying some type of chemical to cause this change.  But you track the aircraft and they are regularly scheduled flights from all over the country (world in some cases) so what is going on? 

What you have observed is a high altitude boundary line passing over your area.  On one side of the line the upper atmosphere was relatively warm and dry and or the other side of the boundary line it is colder and wetter.  But it is not really a line, that is a thin line, but the line is more like a wide sheet.  Imagine  the a line in the sky that is 10-20 miles wide so it may be better to call this a boundary sheet.  This boundary sheet was first visible to you when you began to see the contrail segments drifting toward you from a far horizon.  As the leading edge of this sheet began to approach your area the atmospheric conditions began to slowly change from dry/warm to moist/cooler and the contrails in your flyway began appear and then become longer.  The closer this boundary sheet came the longer your trails form. At the same time that boundary sheet is being intersected with more and more aerotrails that are forming more visible spreading persistent contrails and that section of sky is taking on a lighter shade of blue and becoming increasingly milky white.  The moist air coming into contact with the dry air causes natural cirrus clouds to form into cirrostratus clouds and the same process is taking place with the cirrus aviaticus clouds.  By the time the boundary sheet reaches your overhead flyway the sky is already milky white.  Additional aircraft passed through this sheet during its slow progress to your area while it was reforming into a stratus from contact with the warmer air.   Once the sheet passes over and out of your area it may have been followed by natural thicker clouds as the original boundary sheet was the atmosphere that precede other natural cloud formations.  Or it may be followed by blue skies and a shrinking or disappearance of the contrails.  I have viewed many of the former but here is an example of the latter:

At the time of the event this is the a screen shot of the infrared loop: 

A screen shot of sky cover loop shows no cloud cover: (From 

From the moisture loop a swath of dry air is swiping across Wisconsin from the Southwest: Map from NOAA site

As the boundary line (sheet) moves in to my Central Wisconsin flyway, contrails begin to lengthen and segments of persistent trails can be seen in the the southwest.

As the boundary sheet approaches more jet traffic add additional exhaust nuclei to the sheet and the milky skies form. Photo of approaching moist air:

When the sheet passed between me and the sun I thought it was going to be thick enough to form a sun dog but it did not and after the sheet passed, an hour or two the boundary sheet and original persistent contrails could still be seen probably past Green Bay and over Lake Michigan.  At this time the contrails in my viewing flyway had resumed to whiffs and needles in a full blown blue out of sky.

Afternoon Forecast:  Since dawn we have had clear skies with not a whiff of one trail appearing along the Flyway.  By 2PM CT we could have some contrail forming,  We do have a nice swath of upper atmosphere dry air right along the Flyway but it appears that will push Northeast and the blue skies could be replaced by an wide swath of upper clouds trailing alongside a approaching heavier cloud mass.  I would expect at minimum lengthening contrails as this brushes overhead and some accumulating persistent vestiges that may form higher milky cirrostratus aviaticus.

Update: By 2:00 PM CT those edge clouds came rolling through as cirrocumulus, lower altitude than the cirrus and only one short trail was observed.  By 4 PM a few persistent segments drifted into the flyway and by 6 PM several long lasting trails (5-10 minutes) were laid overhead afterwards it reverted back to needles and whiffs through sunset.

http://theorioninitiative2.blogspot.com/2015/04/why-do-contrails-cirrus-aviaticus-form.html