Towards Determining the Contrail Cirrus Efficacy

Contrail cirrus has been emphasized as the largest individual component of aircraft climate impact, yet respective assessments have based mainly on conventional radiative forcing calculations. As demonstrated in previous research work, impact components can different efficacies, i.e., their effectiveness to induce surface temperature changes may vary. Effective (ERF) proposed a superior metric compare contributions, it may, considerable extent, include effect efficacy differences. Recent model simulations provided first estimate contrail ERF, which turns out be much smaller, by about 65%, than cirrus. The main reason for reduction is that natural clouds exhibit substantially lower presence Hence, new result suggests smaller role context aviation (including mitigation measures) assumed so far. However, any conclusion this respect should drawn carefully long no direct response are available. Such needed order confirm power ERF assessing efficacy.