Warming Sends Jetliners in Vicious Circle

With a fair degree of flying in recent weeks, it was very interesting to read the following story (highlights here) from the Honolulu Star Advertiser ...

Flights from Honolulu to the mainland are the basis of a new study showing that the weather phenomenon El Nino and a warming atmosphere have a profound influence on time spent in the air.

And the longer the flights are, the more they pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - a feedback loop that scientists are exploring for the first time.

Separately, there is a huge amount of money at stake.

If each of the nearly 50,000 daily commercial round-trip flights WORLDWIDE were to be ONE MINUTE longer, that translates to 304,000 hours over the course of a year.  That would require about 1 billion more gallons of jet fuel - $3 billion worth, the researchers calculate - and in turn, emit 22 billion pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Upper-level wind circulation patterns are the major factor in influencing flight times - longer flight times mean increased fuel consumption by airliners.  The consequent additional input of CO2 into the atmosphere can feed back (say scientists) and amplify emerging changes in atmospheric circulation.

This is from the lead author of a study on air travel and climate carried out over 19 years.  An interesting thought for we Kiwis that fly so often ...