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Re: [OM] Shootin' Eight Miles High [was Santa brought me the Fuji F70]

Subject: Re: [OM] Shootin' Eight Miles High [was Santa brought me the Fuji F70]
From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 18:48:01 -0600
>
> A funny thing happened after 9/11. All commercial flights over the US
> were halted for a few days. During that period:
>
> - An amateur researcher in the middle of the country, who had been
> carefully recording surface temperatures for many years found a
> significant increase. Once air travel was resumed, it went back down to
> the prior trend.
>

On 9/10 a HUGE cold front rolled through the USA and on 9/11 it was CAVU
from almost the entire eastern seaboard to the west coast. A massive
high-pressure system sat over the eastern half the the USA and the only
precip that morning was essentially down in the south-east. The morning was
already clear but by the end of the day the sky was as purplish-blue as you
get in the western mountains. It's NEVER that way here. Tuesday Morning was
a repeat for many of us and what was most strange was how quiet it seemed.

Here in Iowa, we are in line with the majority of the northern half of the
USA's east-west airline traffic. At any given point you can look up and
somewhere in the dome you'll find no less than eight jets--day or night.
They are ever present. Even if they aren't leaving long contrails they do
contribute to a general high-altitude haze.

As I understand it, this is a result of the ice crystals created as jets
> fly at altitude. I've both heard that it's a direct result of the
> crystals creating a reflective layer that bounces sunlight back out of
> the atmosphere and that the same effect is a result of the ice bonding
> to tiny particles.
>

Having grown up on the great lakes and being downwind of the midwestern
aerial highway, I was used to seeing how the afternoon would get cloudier
and the evening sunsets over Lake Michigan were almost always interrupted by
high-altitude "clouds" from jet traffic. Of course, watching the sunset
we're observing the "clouds" at a highly oblique angle so the thickness is
enhanced.

My sixth-grade "invention" for invention-convention was the electric
airplane. Granted, it was a few years ahead of battery technology, but I
still think the idea bears merit.  It's only a matter of time--maybe another
fifty years of battery technology, but someday it will be viable.

AG
-- 
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