Halifax, NS: Regularly Spaced Gaps in Contrails [Ethiopian Flight 501]

Mick West

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An excellent example of intermittent contrail formation was posted by GeoengineeringWatch.org:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--M4UXgcf_o
Link to Original video here.

The narrator blames it on spraying, but I think the clue is in the image at the top of this post - perpendicular to the trail are five parallel clouds that look like the result of rotors or wave in the air that often cause rippled clouds or rows of clouds.
upload_2017-7-26_15-59-6.png
Image Source: https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/orographic-influence-on-the-leeward-side.html

This suggests the contrail (which I think is largely aerodynamic) is flying though the invisible portion of the rotors or lee waves and the on-off is the result of the variations in the air between the up and down portions of the waves.
 
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If the time and location of the video were known then it would be trivial to find which plane it was. Wider shots would also help with determining the cloud conditions
 
Path (top of the lighter areas here) works great with with the sun viewed from Halifax. Need more precise location to be sure.
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Once again they never seem to provide an answer to why contrails shouldn't have gaps in them but other clouds can and regularly do.
 
The trail pieces seem to be moving relative to the sun.
Beginning of the video:
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End of the video (about 30 s later):
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Shouldn't the lee waves be stationary?
 
Speed (and altitude) graph of ET501:
upload_2017-7-27_13-3-48.png

It had quite a high speed around 16:30 UTC, it's near the peak of the speed curve. Around this time, its speed was increasing with some fluctuations:

upload_2017-7-27_13-5-45.png

I wonder if they played with the engine power setting.
 
The ETH501 track matches well the contrail in the Aqua image:
Halifax_ETH501_contrail.jpg
The contrail deviates from the track because of the westerly high-altitude wind at the time, but would have converged with it at the ETH501 position at 16:43 UTC, the time of the Aqua photo. The contrail dashes were formed when the plane indeed was flying over Halifax at about 16:35 UTC (1:35 PM local time) and then carried by the wind to the East.
 
Shouldn't the lee waves be stationary?

Yes, I don't think these are local lee wave - that was just a suggestion I made before the location was known. Looking at the weather systems in MODIS there's a variety of wave/ripple/row clouds that reveal some underlying structure of the atmosphere.

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So that a 100% match for Ethiopian 501
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Viewpoint KMZ attached
 

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Here's the back 8 sections. There's two more but they did not auto-merge as the lens flare confused Photoshop. But this is good as it's rectilinear.
 
I've posted the identification of the plane on Dane Wigington's video. It will be interesting to see if there's a response.

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However it does look like I'm banned there. Perhaps a more neutrally considered person could post the info. I posted:

The flight has been identified as Ethiopian 501, at 31,000ft over Halifax, NS, on July 23 2017, video starting at 1:34 local time. It's a regular scheduled passenger flight. The original video is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qSNKL_ooO4


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However it does look like I'm banned there. Perhaps a more neutrally considered person could post the info. I posted:

The flight has been identified as Ethiopian 501, at 31,000ft over Halifax, NS, on July 23 2017, video starting at 1:34 local time. It's a regular scheduled passenger flight. The original video is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qSNKL_ooO4

Youtube automatically puts any comment with hyperlink to the spam bin, unless it comes from the approved person. The poster will see it, but other people won't. This can be circumvented by posting a partial link, e.g., watch?v=3qSNKL_ooO4
 
Dane bans anyone making a critical comment. No chance posting there anything that can be construed as dissent.
 
I have used three separate accounts to leave comments on Dane Wigington's page at https://www.facebook.com/dane.wigington.geoengineeringwatch.org/videos/1534609673267812/

All disappeared within minutes.

Okay, it happened to me too. I added a comment last night with a few general remarks about how such an observation would be seen as a nice indication of wavy atmospheric turbulence, plus a few comments about the general nature of these observations, and today, if I log in to YouTube, I can see my comment, but if I don't log in, my comment is gone. That tells me that the general public is not seeing what I wrote. Also, I didn't get a barrage of angry messages directed at me as would normally be the case on YouTube when disagreeing with a post attributing some everyday event to conspiracy or ghosts or whatever the case might be. No replies at all.

I tried adding another remark, and it shows up just fine if I'm logged in, but again, it's invisible if I'm not logged in, so again I'm sure no one else can see it.

It's just amazing, no, disappointing, to see the huge number of other comments just heaping praise upon this guy. There's not a single disagreeing comment in the bunch.
 
Aerodynamic contrails involve wing loading as a factor. Presumably this could be modulated by the vertical component of velocity of various types of atmospheric waves, which can be quite complex.. eg. "Gravity wave interactions around the jet stream" http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2002GL015783/full

Interesting - I'd always assumed it would just be differences in the air temp/RH. The air movement direction might also be a factor - but it feels like that would be too small.
 
Interesting - I'd always assumed it would just be differences in the air temp/RH. The air movement direction might also be a factor - but it feels like that would be too small.
If the conditions are very marginal for contrail formation then I can see that small pressure variations over the wing could be enough to tip the balance one way or the other.
 
If the conditions are very marginal for contrail formation then I can see that small pressure variations over the wing could be enough to tip the balance one way or the other.
Maybe if things are very marginal - but I think the difference between the air in alternating up and downdrafts would be more significant - consider that it already is enough to cause clouds to form in rows nearby with no plane needed. So it's causing invisible "nearly cloud" regions in the updrafts just to the left (south) of the clouds here.
 
Maybe if things are very marginal - but I think the difference between the air in alternating up and downdrafts would be more significant - consider that it already is enough to cause clouds to form in rows nearby with no plane needed. So it's causing invisible "nearly cloud" regions in the updrafts just to the left (south) of the clouds here.
Yes I agree that in this case it is almost certainly the updraft and downdrafts, as the gaps form a regular pattern characteristic of rotors or waves in the air.

But when you see close-up video of aerodynamic contrails forming you often see more random and small-scale gaps which look more like they are caused by turbulent air flow and fluctuations in pressure. (No doubt local humidity etc is also varying, though.)

Like this, for example:
Source: https://youtu.be/yZNtfWf76Hw


(Watch especially from about 0:30)

IMG_3732.PNG
 
The uploader of the original video has disabled the comments, thus the previous comments have also disappeared. Hmm...
 
Interesting - I'd always assumed it would just be differences in the air temp/RH. The air movement direction might also be a factor - but it feels like that would be too small.
I don't think RH _variations_ are normally a factor in aerodynamic contrail formation (from memory), provided it is supersaturated. I suppose it could be just on the edge of saturation.
Engine induced contrails tend to form, and the vary in length/persistence rather than suddenly turn on and off, but more rarely they can be just on the threshold of formation due to temperature, but persist if they form when RHi > 100%, as far as I can tell from limited observations.
 
I'm glad to see this topic / video analysis is pinned.

The video is being copied and used as "100% proof" of chemtrails, and also " the pilot must be sending us a message" (morse code or other sign).

This thread removes many of the "guesses" that this video is generating..... if people decide to research it beyond a casual internet search.

(Mick, is this thread attracting views ?)
 
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