Identification

Title

Contrail cirrus supporting areas in model and observations

Abstract

Contrails form and persist dependent on the surrounding moisture, temperature and pressure fields and on fuel and aircraft specific variables. After formation, contrail persistence requires only supersaturation relative to ice. The fractional area in which contrails can form is called potential contrail coverage. We introduce a potential contrail cirrus coverage equivalent to the cloud free supersaturated area. This field, simulated by the ECHAM4 climate model, agrees fairly well with estimates of supersaturation frequency as inferred from aircraft and satellite measurements. In areas where the two potential coverages are different, especially at lower flight levels, potential contrail coverage is not a valid estimate of maximum attainable contrail cirrus coverage. We parameterize both potential coverages consistently with the ECHAM4 cloud cover parameterization. A comparison of the potential contrail coverage with an earlier estimate reveals substantial differences especially at upper height levels in the tropics.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7z038br

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-08-23T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact