Contrails, Natural Clouds, and Diurnal Temperature Range

Abstract

The direct impact of aircraft condensation trails (contrails) on surface temperature in regions of high aircraft density has been a matter of recent debate in climate research. Based on data analysis for the 3-day aviation grounding period over the USA, following the terrorists' attack of 11 September 2001, a strong effect of contrails reducing the surface diurnal temperature range (DTR) has been suggested. Simulations with the global climate model ECHAM4 (including a contrail parameterization) and long term time series of observation based data are used for an independent cross check with longer data records, which allow statistically more reliable conclusions. The climate model underestimates the overall magnitude of the DTR compared to 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) data and station data, but it captures most features of the DTR global distribution and the correlation between DTR and either cloud amount or cloud forcing. The diurnal cycle of contrail radiative impact is also qualitatively consistent with expectations, both at the surface and at the top of the atmosphere. Nevertheless, there is no DTR response to contrails in a simulation that inhibits a global radiative forcing considerably exceeding the upper limit of contrail radiative impact according to current assessments. Long term trends of DTR, the level of natural DTR variability, and the specific effect of high clouds on DTR are also analyzed. In both ECHAM4 and ERA-40 data, the correlation of cloud coverage or cloud radiative forcing with the DTR is mainly apparent for low clouds. None of the results herein indicates a significant impact of contrails on reducing the DTR. Hence, it is concluded that the respective hypothesis as derived from the 3-day aviation-free period over the United States lacks the required statistical backing.