29 March 2011 - Contrails

I love clouds. I have literally hundreds of photographs of clouds. Many of them have been taken through the window of an airplane. Looking down on clouds is so different than looking up. Yes, I have seen clouds from both sides. What is particularly interesting about looking at clouds from above, is that you can see the effect of the wind patterns in the formations. You can’t always see enough sky from the ground to see these patterns.  In my list of obsessions, clouds are right up there with pupating insects, the moon, ant risings, gnat tunnels and other favorite oddities. 

Today I discovered that I’m not the only one. There is a Cloud Appreciation Society, founded by Gavin Pretor-Pinney in the UK, and he has just published a book called The Cloud Collector’s Handbook. Now here’s a man after my own heart.  In the article about his new book there were two quotes that I love: 

o     “You just need to look and observe,” he said. “Sometimes getting too trained up  
        in something narrows your vision.”

·            o   As Mr. Pretor-Pinney sees it, you don’t have to possess something to collect it: 
                 “You just have to notice it and record it.

        

That perfectly defines how I feel about watching my backyard flora and fauna. Not to mention my love of cloud spotting. 

 I saw this amazing cloud formation while I was driving south on Middlebelt last May for my annual trip to the nurseries.  It was extremely windy so the formation did not last very long. I happened to look up and see what looked like a row of huge round hay bales. The bottom of this formation could not have been straighter if it was sitting on a flat surface. I pulled over into a parking lot to get the picture. In those few moments of parking and getting out of the car, the round bales were beginning to transform into a more oblong shape.




    Last September I went to Tollgate Gardens for a walk in their woods, and time away from people. It is a gorgeous setting: big pond, community gardens, orchard, alfalfa fields, children's garden. There is a lot to see and enjoy and rarely are there other people. Here's a row of hale bales that look very much like my hay bale clouds. I did a bit of research last May, trying to find out if that formation had a name. I found something similar that was called billows. I'm not sure if this is the same thing. I kind of like the idea of calling them hay bale clouds.


In the Pet Peeve department, one of my current  peeves is contrails. Over the last several years I have noticed how contrails don't disappear anymore. They spread out and become clouds. You get up in the morning to a perfect blue sky. By mid-afternoon the sky is no longer blue and is covered by hazy-white left from all the contrails that have blown out into clouds. This has been an unstated annoyance in my life view. 


All the clouds in this photo are contrails being blown out into cirrus type clouds.

While looking up cloud formations on the web I discovered I'm not the only one annoyed by this. And what a surprise to find that contrails are hugely controversial. The airlines want the public to believe that contrails are perfectly harmless and are just water vapor. However, there is a lot of research going on that shows it is not just water vapor. The researchers refer to these as chemtrails. In 1999 the Environmental Protection Agency put out a report  that verified jet fuel is highly toxic and that any persistent jet contrail plume will be laced with these toxic chemicals which negatively impact human health, agriculture, plants and animals. 


The report went on to say that these toxic ingredients may be the cause of:
      • Increases in dead and dying trees. The U.S. Forest Service notes changes in destructive forest fires  and relates this to increasing releases of combustible toxic chemicals in our atmospheric heating and testing programs and persistent jet contrails exacerbating climate change?

     • There are sharp increases in childhood rickets in many areas of the United States related to increasing cloud cover. A lack of Vitamin D is showing up in pregnant women and young children along with other associated health effects. There appears to be a breast cancer connection to Vitamin D deficiencies noted in recent studies.

• Global Dimming Studies are showing that less sunlight is reaching the earth but temperatures are increasing 

• There are sharp increases in clinical depression since the late 1980s, which could be related to less direct sunlight reaching the earth.

• When jet contrails and man-made clouds are coupled with NOAA’s 60+ listing of unregulated current and ongoing experimental weather modification programs in the United States, the synergistic effects could create enormous climate changes disrupting crop production, micro-climates, and plant health.

•  Increases, in molds, mildews, fungus, flue viruses and pests from increased night temperatures, due to man-made clouds which exacerbate global warming and change the climate, are escalating with limited studies being conducted.

• There are sharp increases in atmospheric water vapor which are caused and exacerbated by jet engine emissions, persistent jet contrails and man-made clouds trapping warmth in the atmosphere. According to the 2007 Climate Change Study, water vapor is one of the most important gases contributing to the greenhouse effect.

Wow.  And here I am merely annoyed they are covering up my blue sky. Who knew? Apparently planes are flying at higher altitudes now, and this allows the bigger, longer lasting and further reaching contrails. 

Granted, contrails make for dramatic sky photos, especially at sunset, but the consequences are something else to worry about.