Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
AMT
Articles | Volume 19, issue 5
Articles | Volume 19, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-19-1951-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-19-1951-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 19, issue 5
Research article
 | 
18 Mar 2026
Research article |  | 18 Mar 2026

Observing long-lived longwave contrail forcing

Aaron Sonabend-W, Scott Geraedts, Nita Goyal, Joe Yue-Hei Ng, Christopher Van Arsdale, and Kevin McCloskey

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Short summary
Airplane condensation trails trap heat, but their full warming effect is hard to measure because they blend into natural clouds. Using satellite observations, weather data, flight paths, and a causal inference framework, we isolated this effect without simulations or contrail masks. We found contrails trap 46.9 gigajoules of heat per kilometer flown over the Americas. This provides a crucially missing observation-based estimate of a major portion of aviation’s environmental impact.
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