Business jets could reduce their contrail impact on the environment through ""small altitude adjustments"", aviation sustainability solutions provider 4AIR found in its study.
Its study evaluated over 16,000 flights, with over 27,000 flights hours, and found that out of 23 flights with the highest contrail impact, 65% of those top contributors could have avoided or minimised their contrail impact by flying higher.
""Effectively reducing our contrail warming impact requires considering contrails on every flight, but successfully avoiding contrails on just a handful of flights would have a major impact, potentially without CO2 trade-offs,"" said 4AIR president Kennedy Ricci.
Contrails - or condensation trails - are a result of aircraft engine emissions interacting with the atmosphere in certain temperature and humidity. It added that 31% of contrails from the total 16,000 flights were estimated to have cooling effects, but altogether had only offset the total contrail warming impact by about 13%.
""Studies have estimated the overall net impact from contrails and non-CO2 emissions to be about twice that of CO2 alone, contributing to two-thirds of aviation’s total warming impact,"" 4AIR read in a statement.
Starting in 2025, the European Union emissions trading scheme will include non-CO2 under operators’ monitoring and reporting obligations. The impact of contrails will no doubt come into focus more through to next year.
Business jets could reduce environmental impact of contrails with ""small changes""
