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 ...

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 ...

Most of us first spot them as children—the white lines in the blue sky that are the telltale sign of a flight overhead. Contrails are an instant visual reminder of air travel, and a source of much ...

The challenge of addressing aviation’s non-carbon dioxide emissions is receiving greater attention, with the climatic impact associated with tell-tale signs in the sky coming under increased study.

If you've ever looked up at the sky and seen an airliner flying overhead, you may have noticed white trails behind it. Contrary to the popular urban myth, these are not chemical agents or chemtrails, ...

An e-mail from Jose asks about the term ``contrail'' and wonders if these have any effect on our weather. The word contrail is really just a contraction for condensation trail, which is that cloud ...

In the skies over Hampton Roads it is common to see contrails, cloud-like strips of condensed water left behind by aircrafts at high altitude. Some dissipate within minutes, but depending on the ...

Airbus is calling for more research into the impact of non-CO2 emissions and how to abate them, as preliminary results from a contrail-reduction study have revealed positive results from flight ...

Marc Shapiro is the Director of the Breakthrough Energy Contrails team, one of American’s partners on contrail avoidance. Below, he answers our questions on the science behind contrail avoidance ...