It's time for contrails to leave the kids’ table and dine with the grown-ups
These three action items are showing that contrail management is ready to move to the next level
✅ This spring and summer, several big contrail roadmaps/reports were released, describing the state of contrail management and pointing to actions needed to move forward. These reports and plans come from the British Aerospace Technology Institute - ATI, the airlines’ own trade organization International Air Transport Association - IATA, the NGO Rocky Mountain Institute - RMI, and latest from the University of Cambridge.
It seems like the time is right to take contrail management to the next level or, as Breakthrough Energy's head of policy and strategy, Matteo Mirolo, puts it: it’s time for contrails to move from the kids’ table to the grown-ups’ table.🪑
The three action items below are signs that contrail management is ready to take a seat at the main table with the aviation industry:
🔍 The measuring and reporting of aviation non-CO2 impacts is starting now
🛩️ Researcher and airlines are scaling up live contrail avoidance trials
💡 There is more education and information about contrail management
The measuring and reporting of aviation non-CO2 impacts is starting now
There is some truth to the saying, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” From January 1, 2025, the European Union is making it mandatory for all airlines to measure and report not only their CO2 emissions but also their non-CO2 impacts (including contrails) for all flights flying to and from a European destination. From 2027 the reporting will also include flights to or from non-European destinations.
Since systems are being developed for airlines to report their non-CO2 emissions, the next natural step is for companies and individual travelers to be able to measure and report the full climate impact of their air travel activities – not just the CO2 emissions they are responsible for.
Researcher and airlines are scaling up live contrail avoidance trials
Whenever airlines collaborate with researchers to perform contrail avoidance trials, valuable lessons are learned about improving contrail prediction models and verification methods, integrating contrail avoidance into airline operations, automating contrail avoidance processes, measuring the effects on air traffic management, and more.
When stakeholders collaborate on large-scale simulations and real-life trials, we remove some of the barriers to the mass adoption of contrail avoidance at scale.
See which airlines have publicly announced involvement in contrail management trials in Blue Lines’ Airline Contrail Index.
There is more education and information about contrail management
Contrail management is one of the best-kept secrets in climate. Depending on how it’s measured, contrail clouds are responsible for about 1-2% of human caused global warming. To reduce the contrail warming by 80%, we need to adjust the flight path of about 1 in 20 flights. It’s cheap and relatively easy, and passengers won’t feel a thing. I don’t know of any other climate solutions with all these qualities.
We must let travelers, politicians, climate organizations, and the media know about contrail solutions. When more focus is put on contrails, more funding will flow to narrow the gaps in our knowledge, and policymakers will be able to fast-forward the road to full-scale implementation.
See you in Houston?
If you are in Houston, Texas, come by the Marriott Marquis this Thursday, where I will chair the non-CO2 track of the Sustainable Aviation Futures North America congress. Amongst other subjects, we will discuss the latest contrail science, trials, and ways forward.
Non-CO2 on the agenda at ICAO
In mid September, ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization), the United Nations’ specialized agency for air travel, held its first symposium focusing on aviation's non-CO2 impacts. Over three days, scientists, airlines, policymakers, OEMs, NGOs, and others discussed the ups and downs of contrails and other non-CO2 impacts.
Takeaways include a call for more “data, data, data” and a focus on increasing the certainty around contrails’ climate impact and prediction model accuracy. However, there were also strong arguments for more ambitious collaborations and trials, as well as calls for more involvement from airlines and air traffic management.
Thus, we return to the starting point: It’s time for contrails to move to the grown-ups’ table.
Go to Blue Lines’ educational website to explore contrails in depth.
(As regular readers of the Blue Lines newsletter will know, contrails are the wispy white stripes that airplanes sometimes leave behind in the sky (made from water vapor and engine soot). Some of these condensation trails can spread out and become high-altitude ice clouds (cirrus), which reflect some of the sun’s energy back into space but also trap outgoing energy in the atmosphere, resulting in a net heating of our planet equivalent to 1-2% of human-induced global warming. However, we can relatively easily avoid most warming contrails by flying around the contrail-prone areas in the atmosphere. This climate solution – often called contrail management or contrail avoidance – is what Blue Lines promotes and wants to see spread worldwide.)
See you soon.
Joachim Majholm,
Blue Lines