Airlines have tamped down on carbon emissions by flying planes at higher altitudes. But this comes at a cost: the higher-flying aircraft are creating more contrails that last longer, worsening the ...

Contrails trap heat in the atmosphere, which in turn warms the planet. Private jets, already heavily scrutinized for high carbon emissions, represent a big part of the contrail problem.

While contrails do block the sun to some extent, when they persist they also spread and become thinner, which means they don't reflect as much solar energy away while still trapping heat.

Fly in warmer, less humid air, and your contrails won’t last as long—nor do as much harm to the climate. As it turns out, less than 3% of global flights generate 80% of contrail warming.

Feathery white lines of condensation left behind airplanes, known as contrails, add to warming the planet. A new study suggests artificial intelligence could dramatically reduce them.

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — There have been all kinds of theories about jet contrails over the years. In reality, they have a very simple scientific explanation. You will often see a white streak ...

John Lin, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah, sat down with City Weekly to set the record straight on contrails. Lin, who studied biology and earth & planetary ...

Contrail hiatus At least that was the case until September 11, 2001. For the first time since the jet age began, virtually all aircraft were grounded over the United States for three days. Even as ...

If contrails linger for hours, they can affect how Earth heats and cools. When contrails expand in the upper atmosphere, they reflect sunlight similar to the behavior of cirrus clouds.

Airlines and scientists are coming to a consensus that the water vapor trails created by airplanes at high altitudes may play a big role in global warming. That's because those contrails, short ...

The demand for air travel is increasing even faster in places like China, India, and Indonesia. In less than a decade, China will have more air traffic than the United States. The problem with ...

Contrails — short for condensation trail — are the white streaks in the sky behind planes. Airplanes create the lines of water vapor when they fly through high altitude humidity zones.