Effects of aircraft on weather

Michael Jones made this Freedom of Information request to Meteorological Office

This request has been withdrawn by the person who made it. There may be an explanation in the correspondence below.

From: Michael Jones

14 September 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am looking into the effects of jet aircraft upon our weather and
would like to see your weather satellite images of Britain which
were produced on 11/09/2009 and 12/09/2009 which show the contrails
produced by aircraft.

I would also like to know whether the Met Office takes aircraft
contrails into consideration when forecasting the weather,since
sometimes it seems that the sky is just covered in the exhaust
vapour trails from aircraft.

Yours faithfully,

M Jones.

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From: Tim Hill
Meteorological Office

14 September 2009

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your enquiry.

We have forwarded this on to our FOI team and they will get back to you as
soon as possible.

If you have any further questions or need additional information please
contact the Weather Desk on 0870 9000 100 where one of our advisors will
be happy to help you. The number is open 24 hours a day, seven days a
week.

Kind regards

Tim Hill

Weather Desk Advisor

Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, EX1 3PB, United Kingdom.

Tel: 0870 900 0100 or +44 (0)1392 88 5680 Fax: 0870 900 5050 Email:
[Met Office request email] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk

See our guide to climate change at
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechang....

Your personal details will be stored in our database. The information will
not be passed to any third parties. Please advise us if you do not wish
your details to be stored. The Met Office is an Executive Agency of the UK
Ministry of Defence and is registered under the Data Protection Act 1998.

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From: FOImanager
Meteorological Office

22 September 2009

Attachment Sat 12th Sept 2009 Visible 1315 local time.png
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Attachment Fri 11th Sept 2009 Infra Red 0815 local time.png
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Attachment Fri 11th Sept 2009 Infra Red 1315 local time.png
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Attachment Fri 11th Sept 2009 Visible 0815 local time.png
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Attachment Fri 11th Sept 2009 Visible 1315 local time.png
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Attachment Sat 12th Sept 2009 Infra Red 0815 local time.png
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Attachment Sat 12th Sept 2009 Infra Red 1315 local time.png
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Attachment Sat 12th Sept 2009 Visible 0815 local time.png
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Attachment 0005042 Jones.pdf
24K Download View as HTML

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Dear Mr Jones

I attach response to your recent enquiry.

Regards

FOI

FOI/Data Protection Manager
Met Office Alexandria 1
Fitzroy Road Exeter Devon EX1 3PB United Kingdom
Direct Tel: +44(0)1392 884036 Fax 0870 900 5050
email: [3][email address]
[4]http://www.metoffice.gov.uk

See our guide to climate change at
[5]http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechang...

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01CA3AB4.7CA25C60
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. mailto:[email address]
4. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
5. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechang...

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Michael Jones left an annotation (22 September 2009)

Our ref: 15-09-2009-170539-001 22 September 2009

Dear Mr Jones

Re: Freedom of Information

Your email dated 14 September 2009 has been considered to be a request for information in
accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your questions:
I am looking into the effects of jet aircraft upon our weather and would like to
see your weather satellite images of Britain which were produced on 11/09/2009 which show
the contrails produced by aircraft.

I would also like to know whether the Met Office takes aircraft contrails into consideration
when forecasting the weather, since sometimes it seems that the sky is just covered in the
exhaust vapour trails from aircraft.

The Met Office holds this information.

I attach 8 pictures, 4 from the 11th and 4 from 12th, 2 visible and 2 infra red.

These pictures do show some vapour trails, especially over Ireland on the morning of the
12th, but by midday the visible picture does not show anything as the vapour trails are too
thin. On the 11th there is a lot of naturally formed cirrus cloud which is mixing with the vapour
trails and making it very difficult on these pictures to sort them out.

We do not take vapour trail cirrus into account in forecasts in general, as they are quite
difficult to forecast if they are permanent or not, which makes all the difference to the state of
the sky. However, we would mention it in forecasts if we actually saw them persisting and
starting to cover the sky, something that does not happen too regularly.

I hope this answers your enquiry.

documents supplied by the Ministry of Defence will have been produced by government
officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using
Crown Copyright from the Office of Public Sector Information at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-
use/index.htm

Information you receive may also include third party owned information. Such information
must not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without first obtaining the permission of any such
third party rights holder.

If you are not satisfied with this response or you wish to complain about any aspect of the
handling of your request, then you should contact me in the first instance. If informal
resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied then you may apply for an independent
internal review by contacting the Head of Corporate Information, 6th Floor, MOD Main
Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail [email address]). Please note that any request for
an internal review must be made within 40 working days of the date on which the attempt to
reach informal resolution has come to an end.

If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may take your complaint to the
Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information
Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not investigate your case until the
MOD internal review process has been completed. Further details of the role and powers of
the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner's website,
http://www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

FOI Manager

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From: Michael Jones

22 September 2009

Dear FOImanager,

Thank you for your reply.

As you mention in your reply,jet aircraft contrails can clearly be
seen covering much of Ireland and over the Atlantic to the west of
Ireland on the 07.15 12th September photos.

It is clear that this formation of contrails should be visible over
mainland Britain on the 11th September photos,but curiously the
photographs that you have provided from 11/09/2009 are of extremely
poor resolution and highly blurred and pixellated.

I'm assuming that these photos come to you in extremely high
resolution from multi-billion pound weather satellites paid for by
British taxpayers.

It is clear therefore that you have for some reason chosen to
supply sub-standard fuzzy photographs in which there is absolutely
no useful information - this is clearly unacceptable.

Why is it that part of your reply comes from the Ministry of
Defence?Do they have an interest in jet aircraft contrails?Are your
weather photographs vetted by the MOD?If so for what reason?

Due to the unsatisfactory nature of your response I feel that I
must insist that an internal review be undertaken.

Yours sincerely,

M Jones

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From: FOImanager
Meteorological Office

23 September 2009

Dear Mr Jones

Thank you for your email. I am sorry you were not happy about the response to your recent FOI enquiry.

The contrails are extremely thin and the satellite that we use sometimes does not pick them up. The visible picture only catches them when the sun is at a low angle and the infra red will detect them if they are of sufficient thickness, or the channel we are using to pick them up is sensitive enough which in this instance does not seem to be the case.

I can assure you that the pictures I am sending you are exactly the same ones that were looked at that day by operational weather forecasters, they are no different. Sometimes the contrails show up very well, sometimes, as in this case they do not.

There are fundamentally two forms of contrails; those that are non-persistent and those that are persistent:

If humidity and temperature are in the right balance (temperature must be below - 57 °C) these condensed trails cannot evaporate again and so persist for some time and can be dispersed into broader patterns by the wind at these altitudes. These persistent contrails can combine with other contrails from other aircraft to form what can effectively be described as high cloud. This can be very noticeable, especially if it occurs near air traffic route "hubs" where many aircraft converge.

On other occasions when prevailing humidity at altitude is low, the contrails can readily evaporate again and so are non-persistent.

There is, of course, a third form of "contrail" -and this is when prevailing atmospheric conditions cannot support either persistent or non-persistent contrails and they are then known as vapour trails.

The vast majority of global aviation is from commercial airlines. Military aircraft account for, by comparison, a very small portion of all contrails.

You also mention the Ministry of Defence. I am not sure if you aware that the Met Office is part of the Ministry of Defence, which is why part of your response comes with a address of that name.

I hope this helps clarify the matter. If you still wish to undertake an internal review please let me know and I will pass your request on to the relevant area.

FOI Manager
Met Office Alexandria 1
Fitzroy Road Exeter Devon EX1 3PB United Kingdom
Direct Tel: +44(0)1392 884036 Fax 0870 900 5050
email: [email address]
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk

See our guide to climate change at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechang...

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From: Michael Jones

23 September 2009

Dear FOImanager,

Thank you for your interesting yet unwarranted lecture on aircraft
vapour trails.

It is clear that the vapour trails visible over and to the west of
Ireland ( clearly visible on the Sept 12th 07.15 photos) were laid
down by aircraft over the British mainland on September 11
2009.This is backed up by weather data available at that time.

Explain to me then,how these vapour trails are visible on Sept 12th
over Ireland,but not visible in your photos when these trails were
produced over the British mainland on September 11th - it is
obvious that they would have been more clearly visible on the 11th.

Your fuzzy satellite photos of September 11 have been independently
inspected and experts agree that they appear to have been edited to
reduce clarity.

We are supposed to be concerned about our environment and climate
change,yet the Met Office appears to be withholding information and
images that could be useful in the fight to save our planet.

Has the Met office been instructed to withhold information that
could be damaging to the aviation industry?If so,under whose
orders?

Due to your failure to provide proper,unmolested satellite images
in response to my Freedom of Information request,I must insist that
an internal review is undertaken into this matter.

Yours sincerely,

M Jones

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Mr Kelly left an annotation ( 4 May 2010)

What happened to the internal review??

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