Fewer night flights could cut climate change impact

Cutting the number of flights that take off at night could help to reduce the contribution of aviation to global warming, researchers said on June 14. Night flights contribute to climate change because the white streaks of condensation, or contrails, left behind by jets trap energy emitted from the Earth's surface.
Daytime flights have less impact because contrails also reflect some of the sun's energy back into space, which has a cooling effect. "It you wanted to minimise the contrail climate effect you might want to think about rescheduling flights," Dr Nicola Stuber of Reading University said in an interview.
The researchers discovered that although only about 25 percent of flights in Britain take off between 6 pm and 6 am, they account for 60-80 percent of global warming linked with contrails.
"Night flights contribute disproportionately to the daily mean effect of contrails," said Stuber.