Unanswered questions about the formation of clouds and their impact on the climate are
currently setting limitations on the validity of global climate forecasts. To make a detailed
analysis of the climate effects of natural ice clouds and the vapour trails created by air traffic,
the HALO (High Altitude and LOng Range) research aircraft embarked on the first of a total of
12 measurement flights on 24 March 2014. For four weeks, as part of the ML-CIRRUS (Mid-
Latitude Cirrus) mission, ice clouds (also known as ‚cirrus‘) will be measured at altitudes of
between eight and 14 kilometres above Europe and the North Atlantic. Under the auspices of
the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), a team of
around 100 scientists from various atmospheric research institutes will be studying the
formation, lifecycle, and climate effect of both naturally occurring cirrus and vapour trail cirrus
clouds.
The scientists will be paying particular attention to the long-lasting vapour trail cirrus created by
air traffic. To date, the extent to which the properties of these anthropogenic clouds differ from
natural cirrus remains unknown. „New findings indicate that the climate-warming effect of
vapour trail cirrus may be greater than that of the carbon dioxide emissions from aircraft,“
explains campaign manager Christiane Voigt, a scientist at the DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics
and the University of Mainz. Locally, there are massive differences. „With HALO, we will
collect a comprehensive set of measurement data, which will allow us to build better models and
reduce the existing uncertainties,“ Voigt continues.
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