Can turbulence information improve contrail susceptibility forecasts?

Jet aircraft inject exhaust particles and water vapor into the upper atmosphere that can produce persistent “condensation trails” (contrails) capable of altering the atmosphere's radiative balance and contributing to climate change. The NextGen Integrated Work Plan, recognizing the need for technologies to mitigate such impacts, has called for the development of models that can provide a “consolidated probabilistic environmental forecast...of the sensitivity of atmospheric volumes to exhaust emissions.” A probabilistic forecast of susceptibility to contrail production would help address this goal, enabling route and altitude selection to minimize negative environmental impacts. Unfortunately, attempts to develop a contrail prediction model based on exhaust constituents and environmental conditions have so far shown only modest skill.

Evidence from simulation studies and observations suggests that background turbulence contributes both to mixing that enhances contrail ice content and to contrail dissipation. Thus, the authors hypothesized that incorporating atmospheric turbulence intensity might substantially improve contrail susceptibility forecasts. This possibility has been investigated using data sets of contrails detected using NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer collocated with numerical weather prediction model-derived turbulence diagnostics, atmospheric state quantities and Aircraft Situation Display to Industry (ASDI) 3D flight densities. Case studies and statistical results will be shown and their implications discussed.