Process-oriented analysis of aircraft soot-cirrus interactions constrains the climate impact of aviation

Abstract Fully accounting for the climate impact of aviation requires a process-level understanding aircraft soot particle emissions on formation ice clouds. Assessing this with help global models remains elusive and direct observations are lacking. Here we use high-resolution cirrus column model to investigate how aircraft-emitted particles, released after crystals sublimate at end lifetime contrails contrail cirrus, perturb cirrus. By allying cloud simulations measurement-based description soot-induced formation, find that only small fraction (<1%) particles succeeds in forming alongside homogeneous freezing liquid aerosol droplets. Thus, soot-perturbed homogeneously-formed fundamentally do not differ optical depth. Our results imply estimates radiative forcing from interactions between large-scale may be overestimates. The improved scientific reported here provides process-based underpinning parametrizations targeted field observations.