Night flights and Climate Change

Night flights are not only more disturbing, they are also more damaging! A study by the Meteorology Department at the University of Reading which has just been published in Nature suggests that a widespread adoption of night-flying restrictions could help minimise the impact of aviation on our climate. Only about 25% of flights take off in the evening but they contribute 60 – 80% of the warming linked to vapour trails (known as contrails). These trails trap heat from the Earth, but during the daytime this is offset to an extent because they also reflect back some of the sun's energy back into space, with a cooling effect.