Most long-lived contrails form within cirrus clouds with uncertain climate impact

Andreas Petzold (), Neelam F. Khan, Yun Li, Peter Spichtinger, Susanne Rohs, Susanne Crewell, Andreas Wahner and Martina Krämer
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Andreas Petzold: Institute of Climate and Energy Systems—Troposphere (ICE-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Neelam F. Khan: Institute of Climate and Energy Systems—Troposphere (ICE-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Yun Li: Institute of Climate and Energy Systems—Troposphere (ICE-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Peter Spichtinger: Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Susanne Rohs: Institute of Climate and Energy Systems—Troposphere (ICE-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Susanne Crewell: University of Cologne
Andreas Wahner: Institute of Climate and Energy Systems—Troposphere (ICE-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Martina Krämer: Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Contrail-cirrus is considered the most important component of aviation-induced climate impact. However, a reliable assessment requires better understanding of their radiative effects. Analysis of seven years of humidity observations by instrumented passenger aircraft shows that conditions promoting long-lived contrails are fulfilled most often in regions already covered by subvisible or visible cirrus: ~90% over the Northern midlatitudes and almost 100% in the Southeast Asian subtropics, approximately equally distributed among visible and subvisible cirrus clouds. A conceptual analysis shows that subvisible cirrus and clear-sky cover ~10% of the cruise altitude over Northern midlatitudes (

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-65532-2

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