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Published online 8 August 2002 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news020805-7
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Air-traffic moratorium opened window on contrails and climate
Clouds formed by the water vapour in the exhaust from jet planes have a small but significant effect on daily temperatures, a new study confirms.
The grounding of commercial flights for three days after last September's terrorist attacks in the United States gave David Travis at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and colleagues a chance they never thought they'd have: to study the true impact that contrails from jet engines have on our climate1.
"It was a tarnished golden opportunity," recalls Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric scientist at NASA'a Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
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