We could cut the climate impact of flying by 60% just by avoiding those white 'contrails'—and it would barely cost anything extra.
SSRN · March 17, 2026 · 6341458
The Takeaway
The white lines planes leave in the sky trap more heat than the actual carbon emissions from their engines. This study shows that slightly adjusting flight altitudes to avoid the atmospheric conditions that create these clouds is an incredibly cheap and immediate fix for global warming that is currently being ignored.
From the abstract
Linear contrails and induced cirrus clouds contribute significantly to aviation's climate impact, potentially accounting for double the Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF) of the cumulative carbon dioxide (CO2) since 1940. While various mitigation strategies exist, operational contrail avoidance through flight planning presents the most immediate and cost-effective solution. This study evaluates different contrail avoidance strategies using FLIGHTKEYS commercial flight planning system and CoCiP co