Continous Haze in the Air

[aviationluver]

Hey,

I've been flying for over 30 years, mostly as a passenger. I've flown all over the world. When I was young, I noticed that you could usually get a good view of things from the air. I had a lot of love for geography. This is one of my reasons for entering aviation.

I noticed around my teenage years that when I flew it became increasingly difficult to see the land as there was a lot of smog and haze. This occurred at all altitudes and locations over the earth.

Now as a professional pilot, I can see how bad things really are.

I love to take photos from the cockpit but I've almost given up because the haze is always so bad.

Does anyone know if this haze is connected with carbon emissions or global warming?

Is the haze carbon particulates or just more moisture in the atmosphere from more water being evapoarted?

Look forward to your theories and ideas on if this can ever be reversed.

[dixi188]

I seem to recall reports that after 11th September 2001 when all air traffic was grounded over the USA for 2 or 3 days that the skys were much clearer than normal due to no contrails.

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by dixi188

I seem to recall reports that after 11th September 2001 when all air traffic was grounded over the USA for 2 or 3 days that the skys were much clearer than normal due to no contrails.

This is a wonderful story for the Green Loony brigade PR department to invent. Nobody was taking any accurate measurements at the time to prove/disprove it, it can never be repeated, and the story can just be cycled round endlessly until it becomes established.

If it helps the view from my window right now, located under the Heathrow climbout path, is a beautiful spring day with visibility to the horizon.

[Superpilot]

I would like to propose that ones "view" of the world, both physically and otherwise is directly proportional to ones age and social/environmental/political ignorance. I can remember a time when I was 14, 15, 16. The world was a beautiful thing and even physically speaking, everything just looked very crisp and pure, or at least that is how I remember it.

Now, having come of age. I understand what politics is, I see daily on the news: war, famine, terrorist attacks, genocides, blockades etc. I also now know about something called global warming. Suddenly my world looks a very bleak place. Suddenly everything looks old, used, dusty and impure. What's changed? Nothing, only our perceptions and knowledge about the same old world

Could this be it?

[WHBM]

When I was a kid in the 1960s (few jets) we lived right on the seafront in the Wirral, west of Liverpool, quite close to the WAL VOR. From the house you could see Snowdon on many days, and the TV transmitter behind Bolton likewise. About once a year, no more, the Lake District mountaintops came into view over the sea. It was always a moment of discussion when this happened.

Revisiting this year (many jets) it was a surprise that it was a day when this was in view. In discussion with the occupants of our old house they said it was there "quite often", and was not any point of comment with others.

So, how does that square with "increasing haze" ?

[Mark 1]

Strange, as my perception is just the opposite.

Learning to fly in the early 80s, there were very few really clear days. Typical summer haze was usually accompanied by about 8K visibility.
Inversion layers usually had a dirty yellowish top to them which was accentuated as you flew through them.

Comparitively the visibility in similar atmospheric conditions now seems much better, which I have attributed by reduced industrial pollution, less coal being burnt, no stubble burning etc.

The first few times I flew up the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland, I can remember thinking how relatively clear the air seemed compared to central England.

These days the low level haze is rarely a problem.

[Denti]

Funny enough there is an article in a german newspaper today citing another article in Science from the university of maryland who made some study about aerosols and the amount in our atmosphere between 1973 and 2007. That report says that the amount of aerosols was growing very strongly over those years and continues to grow rapidly except over europe where it is in decline since around the mid 80ies. Since aerosols can actually dampen the impact of "global warming" europe should get a bigger share of those effects now.


After some searching around i found the abstract of said article in science.