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CrowdScience: Does air traffic affect our weather?

Discussion & Talk

GettyImages-1225933041_crop.jpg

07/08/2020 GMT

Does air traffic affect our weather?

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, Does air traffic affect our weather?

Has reduced air travel due to pandemic lockdown affected our weather and climate?

We have had quieter skies as the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown has grounded many flights – but has there been a wider impact on weather and climate?

Anyone else had their flight cancelled? The COVID 19 pandemic has had a huge impact on air travel – air traffic in 2020 is expected to be down 50 per cent on last year. But beyond the obvious disruption to business and people’s lives, how might the quieter skies affect our weather and climate?
 
One curious listener, Jeroen Wijnands, who lives next to Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, noticed how there were fewer clouds and barely any rainfall since the flights dropped off. Could airplanes affect our local weather?
 
Also, did we learn anything from another occasion when airplanes were grounded, during the post-9/11 shutdown? How will the current period impact our future climate?
 
Marnie Chesterton investigates this question and discovers some of the surprising effects that grounded aircraft are having: on cloud formation, forecasting and climate change. 
 
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, Producer: Dom Byrne

[Photo:Commercial airplane parking at the airport. Credit: Getty Images]

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