European studies claim no climate effect from 9/11 grounding

Flight Global ^ | 14/05/09 | Aimée Turner

[Freeport]

German and UK scientists have challenged the idea that the climate was significantly influenced by the absence of contrails when the US FAA grounded flights after the events of 11 September 2001.

According to US scientists who studied US skies after the temporary grounding, the absence of contrails triggered variations in the Earth's temperature range by 1.1°C each day.

But follow-up work by a number of scientists working independently has shown that the observed change in the daily temperature range was more likely to be a statistical quirk associated with the weather, and that contrails by themselves are likely to have had only a minor effect.

"The theory is that contrails suppress daily temperature range by cooling daytime temperatures and warming nighttime temperatures, so in their absence the daily temperature range increases," says University of Leeds professor Piers Forster.

But the German and UK studies, which incorporated contrails into their climate models, actually found that contrails over the USA only suppress the range by a tiny amount.

[Freeport]

Well, a few days old, but it does add another nail to the coffin of this stupid theory.

[Irishguy]

must not laugh, must not laugh....BAWHAHAHAHAHA

[KarlInOhio]

9/11 was an odd weather day. Basically the whole country was beautifully clear. Just imagine the job of trying to land ever plane in the country if there had been some major storm systems around. One the other hand, how would history have been different if it had been lousy weather over New York and Washington and the terrorists couldn't have seen the WTC from 60 miles away.

I forget whether the great weather lasted long after 9/11.

[PurpleSheepleEater]

I’m so glad my tax dollars are spent on US studies to report on the significance of contrails. I think I’m going to spend the rest of my day trying to think up some crazy way to get government funding. Unfortunately I think this will be a daunting task. It seems all the really off the wall stuff has already been taken.

I know, I’ll do a study to determine how many stupid studies are being studied. :)

[Semper Vigilantis]

The ‘scientists’ that came up with this theory should be added to the No Fly List for life. How ‘cool’ would that be? ;-)

[steelyourfaith]

Interesting.

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Publius6961]

Well, that ought to put the matter to rest for the 23 adult Americans who took that initial story seriously...

There's dumb and dumber... and then there's contemporary USA...