{"id":603,"date":"2008-02-12T17:21:42","date_gmt":"2008-02-12T17:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/603"},"modified":"2008-02-13T19:32:49","modified_gmt":"2008-02-13T19:32:49","slug":"aircraft-contrails-over-the-upper-midwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/603","title":{"rendered":"Aircraft contrails over the Upper Midwest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/02\/080212_modis_anim.gif\" title=\"MODIS images (Animated GIF)\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/02\/080212_modis_anim.gif\" title=\"MODIS images (Animated GIF)\" alt=\"MODIS images (Animated GIF)\" align=\"middle\" height=\"459\" width=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Comparing AWIPS images of the MODIS visible channel, 11.0\u00c2\u00b5m &#8220;IR window&#8221; channel, 3.7\u00c2\u00b5m &#8220;shortwave IR&#8221; channel, and 1.6\u00c2\u00b5m near-IR &#8220;cirrus channel&#8221; <em><strong>(above)<\/strong><\/em> showed how certain satellite channels are very useful in the detection of a broad area of aircraft contrails that existed over parts of Illinois, Indiana, and lower Michigan <em>(likely resulting primarily from air traffic to\/from Chicago and Detroit)<\/em> on the morning of <strong>12 February 2008<\/strong>. The 3.7\u00c2\u00b5m shortwave IR and the 1.6\u00c2\u00b5m cirrus channels offered the best depiction of the actual areal coverage of these contrails; the contrail features exhibited a slightly <em>darker<\/em> signal on the shortwave IR image <em>(due to the smaller ice particle size of the contrails compared to the surrounding cirrus clouds),<\/em> while they appeared slightly <em>brighter<\/em> in the cirrus image <em>(since the smaller particles comprising the contrails were better scatterers than those comprising the surrounding cirrus clouds).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Examining other satellite products such as the MODIS Cloud Phase product, MODIS Cloud Top Temperature product, and the GOES sounder Cloud Top Height product <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em>  from that same time period confirmed that these aircraft contrails existed in an environment that consisted primarily of <strong>ice phase<\/strong> clouds <em>(light red enhancement)<\/em> which exhibited rather cold MODIS <strong>cloud top temperatures<\/strong> <em>(-40\u00c2\u00ba to -60\u00c2\u00ba C, cyan to dark blue enhancement)<\/em> and fairly high GOES sounder <strong>cloud top height<\/strong> values <em>(30,000-39,000 feet above ground level, light blue to white enhancement)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/02\/080212_modis_anim_2.gif\" title=\"MODIS + GOES sounder images (Animated GIF)\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/02\/080212_modis_anim_2.gif\" title=\"MODIS + GOES sounder images (Animated GIF)\" alt=\"MODIS + GOES sounder images (Animated GIF)\" align=\"middle\" height=\"458\" width=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comparing AWIPS images of the MODIS visible channel, 11.0\u00c2\u00b5m &#8220;IR window&#8221; channel, 3.7\u00c2\u00b5m &#8220;shortwave IR&#8221; channel, and 1.6\u00c2\u00b5m near-IR &#8220;cirrus channel&#8221; (above) showed how certain satellite channels are very useful in the detection of a broad area of aircraft contrails that existed over parts of Illinois, Indiana, and lower Michigan (likely resulting primarily from air [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,15,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-goes-sounder","category-modis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}