jetcloud

"The investigation focuses on how aircraft can avoid creating vapour trails, also known as contrails.: These spindly threads of condensation may not seem important but some persist for hours and behave in the same way as high altitude cirrus clouds, trapping warmth in the atmosphere and exacerbating global warming.
Air travel is currently growing at between 3 and 5% per year and cargo transportation by air is increasing by 7% per year. Uniquely, the researchers at Imperial College London are combining predictions from climate change models with air traffic simulations to predict contrail formation and identify ways of reducing it.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is funding the work, which is a joint effort between the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and the Department of Physics at Imperial College London."