Search results for "contrails"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Airborne measurements of the nitric acid partitioning in persistent contrails
2009
This study reports the first systematic measurements of nitric acid (HNO3) uptake in contrail ice particles at typical aircraft cruise altitudes. During the CIRRUS-III campaign cirrus clouds and almost 40 persistent contrails were probed with in situ instruments over Germany and Northern Europe in November 2006. Besides reactive nitrogen, water vapor, cloud ice water content, ice particle size distributions, and condensation nuclei were measured during 6 flights. Contrails with ages up to 12 h were detected at altitudes 10–11.5 km and temperatures 211–220 K. These contrails had a larger ice phase fraction of total nitric acid (HNO3ice/HNO3tot = 6%) than the ambient cirrus layers (3%). On av…
Long-lived contrails and convective cirrus above the tropical tropopause
2017
Abstract. This study has two objectives: (1) it characterizes contrails at very low temperatures and (2) it discusses convective cirrus in which the contrails occurred. (1) Long-lived contrails and cirrus from overshooting convection are investigated above the tropical tropopause at low temperatures down to −88 °C from measurements with the Russian high-altitude research aircraft M-55 Geophysica, as well as related observations during the SCOUT-O3 field experiment near Darwin, Australia, in 2005. A contrail was observed to persist below ice saturation at low temperatures and low turbulence in the stratosphere for nearly 1 h. The contrail occurred downwind of the decaying convective system H…
In Situ Observations of Ice Particle Losses in a Young Persistent Contrail
2018
We describe results of in situ observations of a 1 to 2-min old contrail in the vortex Phase generated from soot-rich exhaust (> 10^15 emitted soot particles per kg-fuel burned). Simultaneous measurements of soot (EIsoot) and apparent ice (AEIice) particle number emission indices show a pronounced anti-correlation in the vertical contrail profile. AEIice decrease by about 75% with increasing distance below the contrail-producing aircraft,while EIsoot increase by an equivalent relative fraction, therefore strongly suggesting sublimation causing the ice particle losses. Quantifying these losses in measurements helps to validate and improve contrail parameterizations used to estimate the clima…
Contrail Formation: Analysis of Sublimation Mechanisms
2018
We study losses of ice crystals in a persistent, soot-rich contra i l in the wake behind a medium-sized aircraft at cru i se. Constrain i n g a model covering ice nucleation, growth, and subl i m a t i o n phases with a n aircraft data set, we track the subl i m a t i o n history over two minutes of cont r a i l age and rela t e ice crystal numbers to the number of soot particles emitted by th e aircraft engines.