Cirrus Clouds and Aviation: Observations, Trends, and Climate Interactions
A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Atmospheric Techniques, Instruments, and Modeling".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 173
Special Issue Editors
2. German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IPA), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Interests: contrail cirrus observations; contrail modeling on the impact of fuel composition; aviation climate impact mitigation
Interests: aviation effective radiative forcing (ERF); persistent contrail cirrus; ice-supersaturated regions; contrail climate impact and mitigation; aviation climate impact
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Aviation accounts for about 3.5% of global effective radiative forcing (ERF) from all human activities. Aircraft condensation trails (contrails), particularly persistent contrail cirrus, contribute to around 2/3 of the total aviation ERF component, comparable to that of cumulative aviation CO2 emissions. Contrails form from engine-emitted particles, and grow and spread to form contrail cirrus in ice supersaturated regions, which, similarly to natural cirrus, exert a net warming effect. Despite their importance, uncertainties remain in quantifying contrail formation, lifetime, interactions with natural cirrus, radiative effects and overall climate impact. These uncertainties may arise from limitations in in situ measurements of aircraft emissions, challenges in detecting and characterizing contrail cirrus using remote sensing observations, and gaps in microphysical parameterizations within models across spatial and temporal scales relevant to contrail evolution.
This Special Issue, “Cirrus Clouds and Aviation: Observations, Trends, and Climate Interactions,” aims to bring together recent advances in in situ observational analyses, satellite- and ground-based remote sensing, and high-resolution to global-scale modeling that together enhance our understanding of contrail formation, microphysical properties, spreads and trends, radiative impacts, and their role in the broader climate interactions. We invite submissions that (1) present new in situ or remote sensing datasets that constrain contrail cirrus properties; (2) investigate long-term trends in contrail frequency and radiative forcing; (3) improve modeling—from plume scale approaches to contrail evolution models and global climate simulations or (4) assess mitigation strategies, including flight re-routing and advanced fuel and engine technologies. Studies addressing the aviation sector more broadly, for instance CO2 and other non-CO2 emissions, are also welcome. This Special Issue provides a platform to share progress, highlight challenges, and discuss future research directions aimed at reducing uncertainties in the climate impact of cirrus clouds and aviation.
Dr. Ziming Wang
Dr. Judith Rosenow
Dr. Weiyu Zhang
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- persistent contrail cirrus
- ice-supersaturated regions
- aviation emissions
- aviation effective radiative forcing (ERF)
- remote sensing and in situ observations
- climate modeling
- contrail climate impact and mitigation
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