Contrails, understanding why they arent chemtrails

the smoke i was talking about was the trail, i just didnt know what else to call it. and i didnt mean to say it came so far down, it really just lingered in the air and spread out. if it spread out that far then im sure some particles would float down to the earth and a result to that would be that you could taste it. i just wanted to know what this was because ive read things on here about chemtrails staying in the air and contrails disapering, these didnt go away. it was pretty warm that day because i was in my pool, then straight after taking these photos i had to go to the hospital because i dislocated my shoulder. i live on one side of the town and the hospital is on the other, the sky looked like that over there too and there was no cloud before that plane came over.

Originally posted by onesockon

the smoke i was talking about was the trail, i just didnt know what else to call it. and i didnt mean to say it came so far down, it really just lingered in the air and spread out. if it spread out that far then im sure some particles would float down to the earth and a result to that would be that you could taste it.

Aah Ok

High level cloud or high level particles will not come down to the ground. If you notice the only clouds that produce rain or any other type of precipitation (or anything that reaches the ground really) are low level and mid level clouds like Cumulus, Altostratus etc. Clouds at that height, where the plane is cruising, produce what is known as virga.

Think of a volcano erupting. Where does most of the smoke stay?

Up in the air. When Krakaotoa erupted, the smoke cloud went around the entire earth 3 times before the smoke dissipated. Apart from ground zero, most of the dust didnt even reach the ground

Originally posted by Pellevoisin
reply to post by Essan

 

The study of Global Dimming is a related subject of significance.

Never thought I would agree with you, but global dimming is related. Contrails being made of ice do in some cases reflect the heat from the sun, stoppping radiation heating from occuring at sea level. Although it can also work in the oppsite way by trapping the heat, preventing it from escaping back into space. The only problem is that these are only on a micro scale rather than being world wide

OK Oz, this is a very interesting thread and thank you for starting it and sharing your expertise. I hope for all our sakes that you are correct, but I am not convinced yet.

I first heard of chemtrails in the summer of 2006 while attending a Mufon lecture. It was not the topic, but the speaker mentioned the term in passing and I googled it when I got home. What a surprise!

I had been wondering for some time why our normally bright blue and cloudless skies here in Southern California where I have lived for 35 years had been turned into white-outs for so long. So I have been sky watching daily ever since.

I live near an airport and have observed the flight paths both from the ground and from the air as I have flown in and out many times. I have much documentation and photos and am keeping a journal, but will try to be brief with just some of the observations I have made.

I keep binoculars and camera with me at all times. I have yet to see a commercial jet leave anything more than a true contrail that dissipates from the end at about the same rate at which it is made. The "chemtrails" are all made by gleaming white planes which I can clearly see through the binoculars but unfortunately my camera zoom is not powerful enough to take a good photo. I don't see even a hint of a marking on them. These planes do not follow the same routes as the commercial airline jets and form grids or other patterns in the sky of trails that remain and spread to completely blot out the blue. I have seen both commercial jets high up, not landing at the local airport and not making contrails, and these white planes leaving white trails that stick and spread at the same time. A week ago Sunday I took an excellent photo of a perfect grid pattern right above my house and spreading as far as I could see. My house is not under any flight path. For my final kicker I will mention the Fourth of July 2007 when I drove from my home to Palm Desert which is approximately 100 miles. The "chemtrails" were being sprayed beginning in the early morning and I tracked them all the way and could see them 360 degrees all the way out there. It started as a hot and clear day and by 11:30 a.m. the entire sky was white. Anybody living here in So Cal can back me up on that if they were watching.

Oh! I lied. I have one more story to share before I sign off. On New Year's morning 2008 I stepped outside at 1:45 a.m. after cleaning up from my party. And no, I was not drunk. I looked up to the sky as usual and was shocked to see a grid of "chemtrails" criss-crossing the early morning sky.

I could go on and on, but will stop here. Again, thanks for this thread. I was full of hope that you would convince me so I could finally relax and laugh about the subject...but, alas! Kudos also to all the posters with great info and pics!

reply to post by sylph hugger


sylph, Welcome...

I grew up in SoCal. Have lived in Hawthorn and Gardena and Long Beach...and I lived in Palm Springs too.

Your story is interesting, but still hearsay. You said you see airplanes that are 'mostly white' in your binocs? So, you can always see the airline's colors on the others? What time of day, and what angle of the Sun do they appear 'all white'? I ask because, as an airline pilot for about 22 years I have seen many airplanes, some just 2000 feet above me (from your viewpoint on the ground, if they make a contrail, they are at least 10 times farther away) and until they are almost directly above or below, within a few miles laterally, they are white...or really a 'silver-white'...it is hard to discern the livery, unless the distance is just right, and the angle of the Sun is conducive.

Try this...go to LAX and watch the airplanes, naked eyes. The runways at LAX are just over two miles long (about 12,000 to 13,000 feet)

Find a place to park on Aviation Blvd (I think that's the street) at the end of 25L and 25R and take a look (naked eyes) at an airplane that just took off, as it begins its turn over the beach...(departures off of the south runways turn to a heading of 220 at the shoreline, usually). That's only about 2.5 miles away, hard to see the paint, right? Binocs will make it easier, sure.

Now, let's look up with your binocs, to 33,000 feet. That is (roughly) 6 miles...and you are looking at the belly of the airplane. You will not see much color (nor paint) on the belly...OK, UAL has the dark blue, but only on the aft section of the fuselage...and they are always changing their paint scheme anyway...even with the 10X or 20X power of the binocs, the belly of the airplane is reflecting a lot of sunlight...and will tend to look whitish.

But, you do not know the FL the airplane is at...and what the atmospheric conditions are, at that FL. There can be large variations in Relative Humidity and wind speeds, between even a few thousand feet.

Let's examine 'flight paths'...water vapor trails ('contrail' is a short term for 'condensed water vapor trails') have been around since high altitude jet flight was invented. In 2008, there are THOUSANDS of perfectly harmless, perfectly civilian jetliners in the air every day. There are regions of airspace that are 'Restricted', for the military...'R' airspace isn't always 'hot' though...there is 'Prohibited' airspace...but one would assume certain military ops could be conducted there, but I won't go into that...

My point is getting too long, so I will just say...again, I have flown both Domestically and Internationally for a major airline for just shy of 22 years...at the altitudes purported to contain 'chemtrails'...yet all I have ever seen are normal contrails, sometimes dispersed to resemble cirrus clouds, sometimes the cirrus clouds will naturally occur, due to a Front on the way, or some other upper air circulation pattern, sometimes the contrails will linger and merge with natural clouds...maybe Oz can help, he's the Meteorologist, I have to know cloud types, where and why they form, what the difference is between a warm front, and a cold front, and a stationary front...how to read WX charts...about how to intrepret the charts, I meant... and a basic understanding of WX, but I'm not the expert on WX.


I can never remember how to spell Oz's full name...
Oh, OzWeatherwatcher...that right??? apologies, not that hard, I know...there's another bloke with a similar username....

[edit on 22-2-2008 by weedwhacker]

[edit on 22-2-2008 by weedwhacker]

Oh no! I got it wrong three times! "OzWeatherman" !!!

[edit on 22-2-2008 by weedwhacker]

reply to post by sylph hugger


sylph, one last errant thought,

I mentioned, maybe on this thread, about looking at Jeppesen Aeronautical charts, ask just about any pilot for his/her old ones, they show the Airway system in your location. I mentioned that Jeppesen gets revised every two weeks, which is true...but the US1 and US2 HIGH charts may not be revised in every cycle...but there is propably a website by now to see them, at least sections (panels)...

reply to post by weedwhacker


Thanks....I dont think that I can add anything to that mate...

You prob know more about the avaition side of things than me. Didnt realise you were a pilot!!

Originally posted by OzWeatherman
reply to post by weedwhacker

 

Thanks....I dont think that I can add anything to that mate...

You prob know more about the avaition side of things than me. Didnt realise you were a pilot!!

Cheers, Oz mate!

You know a heck of a lot more than I about meteorology, I am sure.

We used to joke, to ourselves, we wished we had X-Ray eyes, or some power to see the winds, and the shears (the ones not obvious because of the low moisture content) so we could request altitudes to avoid the bumps...obviously, cumulus are bumpy, but it's the areas where no moistue is present, but it's still turbulent...thanks to guys like you, we are getting better at predicting these areas. Major airlines have trained Meteorolists on staff to assist the Dispatchers n the flight planning.

So, we do our best, but Nature has a mind of her(his?) own, quite often. We often just rely on other pilots' reports.....not science, but real world, real time works.

Great posts, Oz!

reply to post by weedwhacker


Yeah know worries mate :-)

You are right, nothing beats real time data. The weather can change so quickly sometimes, which some chemtrails believers dont understand. Just because one contrail appears, and another doesnt, it is not an indication of spraying. Most dont have a clue about the altitude the planes are flying out and dont take into account the weather can change

I like how they say....."there was spraying which spread to the whole sky, and the temperature was warm and sunny, then after they sprayed it was cold and wet". None of them bother to research clouds or take into account that a layer of cirrostratus is a good indication that the air is unstable, therefore leading to rain, snow, storms etc.

Keep your comments coming...good to have someone that spent more time than the average person up there

Originally posted by Maya432
ok
my next question

what about in the heat of the summer?
will we still see contrails that stay and spread out?

Yep we sure will

Temperature decreases with height. So while it may be warm in,the lower levels, the higher you go the colder it is. Cloud will still develop and spread out at a high altitude, depending on the water content and temperature of the upper atmosphere.

So, I would DEFINITELY like to hear yer chipper remarks concerning Germany's admittance of chem trails as of late....

Originally posted by spinladen
So, I would DEFINITELY like to hear yer chipper remarks concerning Germany's admittance of chem trails as of late....

Other members and myself have already addressed this issue....and it is not recent. The original article is talking about chaff (aluminium strips)sprayed by military jets to deflect of radar pulses to make it harder for them to be tracked . The website that reported the article added their own content and manipulated the original story. Germany has never admitted spraying chemicals in the atmosphere.

Originally posted by ThatsJustWeird

Originally posted by LoneGunMan
No my friend it is you that does not get it. For one thing what altitude are your cirrus clouds? They form from 5-15 kilometers. You can see something 5 kilometers high at the horizon line. I am done trying to explain this to you.

Good, because I refuse to argue with someone wishes to remain completely ignorant. There is no point.

For the rest of you who want to learn Cirrus clouds form at 23,000 feet and ABOVE (staying in the troposphere). Because of their make up, they can NOT form below that. The typical height is 26,000 feet.

I have no clue where LGM got that 5-15 km from but, it couldn't be more wrong.

Old comment, but I can't resist what seems to be a confusion of units.

23,000 feet is 7km, but cirrus can form down to 20,000 feet (6 km), and I've heard of cirrus at 46,000 feet (14 km).

So it seems you are both right as to where cirrus form. And obviously they can be seen at the horizon if, as in the photo, the horizon is several thousand feet above you. (As it usually is, if there are mountains anywhere nearby).

LGM's math depends on the earth being the same height everywhere. A photo of contrail at the horizon in Kansas, or over the ocean, would perhaps serve his cause better.

Originally posted by matiascs
Something I never understood about this conspiracy theory is why would the spraying be done at day time? Everyone would see the contrails and start wondering what the heck those weird clouds are...if these things had to be done in "secret", night spraying would be the way.

Anyway, I've seen some extremely doubtful and outlandish claims in Rense.com about this hypothesis...but to me, it just doesn't make sense...besides...do you know the logistics you would need for massive spraying?

Just doesn't add up...

Have a good one...

I'm on the fence with this subject, but I can already think of two possibilities to spray during the day. Maybe "they" need to spray X amount of substance within X amount of time for "their" plan to work. Day and Night spraying. I'm sure these trails don't just show up in the day time do they? Not only that, but more people are outside during the day, hence better to spray during the day, if these trails are real.

But like I said, I'm on the fence if these are even real. It would take a airline employee to come forward with evidence that planes were rigged for this. A video or pitures of the system that sprays this substance?

reply to post by OzWeatherman


I'm not for nor against the befuddled topic but I do have a question.
What does this picture look like?

Contrail ?

[edit on 19-7-2010 by Genesis322]