Real Contrail Science, why they persist and why they spread out and why they are not chemtrails

Ive been noticing a lot of discussion on other threads, particularly by newer members about the persistance and spreading out of contrails and making the assumption that they are chemtrails. The reality is that contrails, can spread out to cover the sky and can persist for many hours after they are originally created. All it takes is a basic understanding of how the upper atmosphere works.

Why we see more contrails in modern days

Another point brought up is that contrails never existed or were not as abundannt before a recent date. Then is this photo from the book Cloud Studies in Colour, by Richard Scorer and Harry Wexler, publsihed in 1967 incorrect?

contrailscience.com...

Is this youtube video, with footage from a 1944 film incorrect?

au.youtube.com...

And this one shows the huge density of aircraft over the USA, which helps to explain criss crossinf contrails and grids

fboweb.com...

Remarkable that contrails were persisting and spreading out back during world war 2, when many of the chemtrail theorists claim that contrail persistance and spreading out never occured back in the days when they were younger

And another reason there appeared to be fewer contrails

Contrails are a common sight now, but prior the the advent of commercial jet travel in the late 50s, there was little reason for planes to fly high enough to form contrails

Now with the large use of jet engines, combined with the lower cost for plane tickets and exponential increase in numbers using air travel, naturally we see many more contrails along flight paths (pending weather conditions obviously).

How contrails persist

Many chemtrail theorists claim that contrails do not persist while chemtrails do. Then how do they explain snow staying on the ground for long periods of time. They are both the same thing, ice crystals, only introducing extremely hot engine vapour into a freezing cold environment means that ice crystals from much quicker than snow forms. The process is known as sublimation.

Sublimation is a chemical process (i know i mentioned chemical) when a vapour/ gas is cooled so quickly that it goes into solid form, skipping the liquid phase.

If there is little or no water vapour present in the atmosphere, then the contrail will not last for long. If the air already has water vapour present in it, then contrails will persist longer. The reason for this is because of supersaturation. This occurs when an excessive amount of water vapour is added into an already moist environment, causing the ice crystals to not sublimate like they usually would, meaning we see them from the ground as a persistent contrail.

As more planes follow flight paths, they introduce more vapour into the already supersaturated air, and attract more water vapour from the surrounding air, making the ice crystals increase in size and the contrail to become thicker. Its almost the exact same way clouds are formed, and from a meteorological aspect, we regard contrails as cirrus cloud (meaning they are physically identical to normal clouds) if they are observed persist for at least 30 minutes.

How contrails spread out

Now knowing that contrails are able to persist, we now can move on to explaining why they spread out.

An interesting quote first up

It has been estimated that in certain heavy air-traffic corridors, cloud cover has increased by as much as 20%

Yep, thats right, cloud cover. As explained before contrails are regarded meteorologically as cirrus cloud. When they spread out to form a layer of cloud, its known as cirrostratus cloud.

For a contrail to spread out we need a couple of things. Firstly we need a supersaturated environment. And we also need the high winds that are found at the altitudes at which planes fly. One such type of wind is known as the jetstream, which has recorded winds in excess of 200mph. So the prevailing winds in a dry eair environment would normally disspate a contrail quite quickly. In a supersaturated environment. The winds push moisture into other areas already moist, causing more ice crystals to form and a layer of cloud to from over the sky. As long as there are high winds and mositure, the clouds will continue to spread

This also explains why spraying a substance at 20,000 to 30,000ft is unplausible. Imagine spraying at a height of say 22,000ft into a wind of 150kph. The chemical or whatever wont fall gently to the ground on top of you, its more likely to end up miles away in any direction!! Just look at the changes in wind direction and speed on the links below. The data is from the world wide upper air network which im proud to say im involved in. Its collected using a weather balloon and raidosonde, tracked with either radar or GPS

Just to note, I have never had any of our weather balloons land back down directly from where our launching zone is......now thats saying something isnt it

weather.uwyo.edu...


For those interested in how contrail persistence is forecast, use the Appleman chart, overlayed with you nearest upper air sounding met station (radiosonde sounding/ weather balloon)

asd-www.larc.nasa.gov...

weather.uwyo.edu...


In conclusion, its far more reliable to poison the population by spiking the drinking water supply rather than this way

And its also funny to see that all the chemtrails sites on the web, dont use advice from real meteorologists

Four flags and four stars


No challenges? Hate to plug my thread, but I was hoping for a bit of a debate on this topic

Five flags

five stars

reply to post by OzWeatherman


I you want I can start posting the 10 or 12 pictures that they always use as evidence followed by the links for “Weather Wars”, “Carnicom”, and “Renice”, then start whining about you being a debunker when you pick them apart?

reply to post by OzWeatherman


How can anyone challenge an accurate, well-thought-out post, when the only alternative is for one to start making stuff up and hope no-one calls one out on it.

This is the kind of thread I love ATS for - people can actually learn something

Originally posted by dave420
This is the kind of thread I love ATS for - people can actually learn something

Well that was the purpose for this thread

I just like to show that there are answers for those chemtrail questions, you just have to know where to look.

Originally posted by OzWeatherman

Originally posted by dave420
This is the kind of thread I love ATS for - people can actually learn something

Well that was the purpose for this thread

I just like to show that there are answers for those chemtrail questions, you just have to know where to look.

... and you have to want to learn. I think that's the major problem some believers have - they desperately want this to be true, for some reason I can't quite fathom.

Originally posted by dave420
... and you have to want to learn. I think that's the major problem some believers have - they desperately want this to be true, for some reason I can't quite fathom.

That and provide some credible links. I am surprised at the amount or lack of unbiased resources from their perspective.

If I can find it I will find the lab report for the alleged "chemtrail barium". I believe the official report stated that there was no evidence of it falling from the sky...lol. And the levels they reported were unsafe, were unsafe levels in drinking water, not unsafe air levels. Will find the links for these

Edit- Here's one of the incorrect reports explained, notice that these important factors were omitted from cliff carnicoms investigation, and other ones too

contrailscience.com...

[edit on 17/11/2008 by OzWeatherman]

The problem with chemtrailers is that they can't make up their mind what chemtrails are, how and why they are dispersed or what they ought to look like. For example, are chemtrails ....

1) Weather Modification?

In which case we would never see them because in order to seed a cloud you need to fly through or over the cloud, and the cloud would obscure the aircraft from ground view.

2) Dispersal of barium, aluminium or other substances at high altitude for whatever reason?

In which case we wouldn't see them any more than we see all the sulphur, soot, CO2, ozone and other stuff in the upper atmosphere.

3) An attempt at preventing global warming?

In which case they're going about it in slightly the wrong way because what are alleged to be chemtrails actually cause global warming (as shown by dozens of studies over the past couple of decades)

4) Something new?

In which case why is there is many photos, reports and studies of identical phenomena dating all the way back to the 1920s, and expecially from WWII onwards?

5) Something else?

Maybe. But still we have the consistently unanswered question: why do alleged chemtrails look and behave exactly the same as contrails and only appear when we would expect contrails to form?


Whilst there may be some non sequitur or otherwise circumstantial evidence that spraying operations could or might take place, there remains not the slightest shred of evidence that what people see in the skies and claim to be chemtrails are anything of the sort.

If chemtrails really are being sprayed, it would seem that those responsible are doing a very good job at making believers look the other way! But then, if you want to rob the bank, tell the police that the robbers will wear a red hat. And make sure you wear no hat at all .....



[edit on 17-11-2008 by Essan]

Absolutely the BEST thread on contrails ever posted,,,,, thank you!

I agree that contrails certainly are not chemtrails.

Great post! I thank you for explaining these issues to the community. Chemtrails is one of the longest running conspiracy theories that only stays alive through deception. It is time for it to die!

Very good post, very informative. Star and flag from me!

reply to post by OzWeatherman
If this is true, why did the contrails prior to the mid to late nineties not do so as well?

On one of the websites linked in one of the recent chemtrail threads there was a picture (out of gajillions) that showed a halo around the sun. The claim was that it appeared after a chemtrail spraying. However in the picture you could see little bit of the horizon and the LEAFLESS trees. That tells me the picture was taken in the winter. I see those halos fairly often in the winter on particularly humid days and understood them to be ice crystals formed from the abundance of moisture in the air in a particularly cold climate. I never really bought into the chemtrail thing but that picture pretty much debunked their whole site for me.

Anyway, starred and flagged, and i'd do it again if i could.

Originally posted by defcon5
reply to post by OzWeatherman

 

I you want I can start posting the 10 or 12 pictures that they always use as evidence followed by the links for “Weather Wars”, “Carnicom”, and “Renice”, then start whining about you being a debunker when you pick them apart?

You guys aren't too unpredictable yourselfs.. The OP was the regular "I'm a meteorologist.. chemtrails are really water vapour..(EDIT: link to contrial science.. WW2 contrail photos) they've always been there, you just didn't notice because of more planes now.. Something about WW2 contrails.. Even if they are, don't worry it won't land directly on you.. theres more efficient ways to poison people ect, ect"


I've seen all this information posted many times.

Funny how it's sort of addressed to the newer members becasue when I came here it gave me the impression that everyone on this site thought chemtrails were bogus but as I saw it was the same people over and over again.. same people posted in this thread too.

Wait someones missing.. I guess weedwacker will be in here to comment after the first crazy posts.

Nothing wrong with that youtube video.. no ones saying all contrails are chemtrails and the video only described how contrails form... so..

I guess I can ask a question now(not a new one I might sound like a broken record now but I never got a satisfying answer)
and it is.. How can a plane appear to have 2 separate trails one that I would call a contrail(dissipated or faded in under 30 seconds) and one that I would call a chemtrail(does not dissipate just spread) so close together and all the way along the entire sky?

The planes were not doing any fancy maneuvers so the 'wingtip vortex' explanation didn't fit right with me. Also the sky being a fluid/different temps different location(you know what I'm talking about) one didn't seem right either because It doesn't seem likely that this would be a perfect line all the way along the sky. Maybe it could happen once in a 'blue moon' but I think as the wind continued blowing the effect would change. Plus I have seen this happen 3 times if I recall correctly Which indicates to me it's pretty common.

It looks exactly what I would expect if a plane was spraying a 'chemtrail' and experienced natural contrail formation at the same time, the chems stay and the contrail fades normally.

So what gives? One at a time.. don't everyone jump on me at once

[edit on 11/17/2008 by Bumr055]

Thank you. All threads should be like this...with real science!

I never understood the chemtrail theory. If you wanted to affect an area of people with a vaporized substance, you wouldnt be able to do it from the upper atmosphere could you? I mean not effectively. they would disipate and be carried away bt the wind. Crop dusters yea, I could understand that.

Nice post on contrails. Unfortunately, contrails are not chemtrails. I cannot accept your logic. I personally have seen the difference between the two. One dissipates quickly. I have seen the trail change in mid air and revert back to a regular contrail. I have seen the white stringy material fall on ground within +-6 hours or so. I have seen the videos from DOD on their weather mod experiments (can't find links now).Just like the poisoning our soldiers received in the Gulf War, do you really think our gov would have any qualms about poisoning US citizens as well in the name of weather mod science.

Oz, what are the odds of a contrail forming into a cloud?

Like, out of 1000 flights, how many should form into a cloud.

How often are conditions right for a contrail to form.

10%, 30%, or more like the 90%+ it would take to create
the affect chemtrails are currently having on our planet.

Show me one sounding over the US that would fit within
the Appleton chart that would POSSIBLY cause a contrail.

Then, keep in mind, that when the Appleton predict a contrail
should form, it's only right about 25% of the time.

Sorry, all I see is more disinformation from the OP and his
followers.