Aviation Contrail Cirrus and Radiative Forcing Over Europe During 6 Months of COVID?19

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a 72% reduction of air traffic over Europe in March–August 2020 compared 2019. Modeled contrail cover declined similarly, and computed mean instantaneous radiative forcing dropped regionally by up 0.7 W m?2. Here, model predictions cirrus optical thickness the top-of-atmosphere outgoing longwave reflected shortwave irradiances are tested comparison Meteosat-SEVIRI-derived data. agreement between observations modeled data is slightly better when contributions included. spatial distributions diurnal cycles differences these 2019 partially caused atmospheric surface conditions, particularly for solar radiation spring 2020. Aviation signals become discernible observed subtracting numerical weather prediction results that approximate atmosphere conditions without contrails.