Why are aircraft the only thing that reverts temperature back to pre-1950s when removed from the sky?

Question

...AND, more importantly, why isn't this more of an issue???

(Before we get all the denials that this is occuring please especially research "Dimming", "Contrails" and aircraft "Forcing Rate".

Some studies can be found at:

http://facstaff.uww.edu/travisd/index.php (See Upcoming/Recent Research)

http://areco.org/studies.htm#climate

http://facstaff.uww.edu/travisd/refjoupub.php

Answer 1

It didn't "revert temperature back to the 1950s".  Read your own  references.  It changed the diurnal (day/night) temperature range.  Days were warmer, nights were colder.  On balance, it was close to a wash.  The fact that the middle website makes this claim should give you some idea of their understanding of this.

Absence of clouds does the same thing, so removing contrails doing it is not exactly a surprise (although the magnitude of the effect was somewhat surprising).  The day/night temperature difference in the desert is far greater than that in the city.

This is of great interest to climatologists, less so to the general public.  Which is why it isn't a big media deal.

Answer 2

This is an issue.  The IPCC wrote an entire report on aviation and climate change.  It is also discussed in the AR4, Chapter 2.  There is a much more thorough and detailed study than that done by Travis et al. (Schumann, 2005 as cited in AR4 Chap. 2).  

The bottom line is that Travis et al. do correlation studies, and focus mainly on the Sept 11., 2001 dataset.  They have not done general theoretical or mechanistic studies.  In short n=1 for their data, and they don't take out factors such as a general decrease in cloudiness.  More thorough work suggests the effects of contrails is small.

Edit:  And you reject the conclusions of the IPCC and Schumann (2005) why exactly?  You don't say, although you claim you are familiar with them.  Aside from a correlative study, what objective verified results do you have that suggest the effects of aircraft are far larger than what Schumann and the IPCC estimate them to be?  Your question is beginning to smell like "axe-to-grind" lay-obsession to me because I find it hard to believe, frankly, that someone who "fought for IPCC studies to be done" would be posting about it here on Y!A.

Answer 3

Your question doesn't make much sense as worded, but unlike most of the people on here you can at least recognize that humans can influence the climate. It's too bad that we can't run the same experiment with carbon dioxide, have a week or so without anthropogenic CO2 and then measure the radiation fluxes up and down.  I'm sure the "skeptics" would find a reason not to believe that experiment too.

EDIT: Oh, ok.  These are certainly things to consider when studying anthropogenic climate change, and the IPCC did their best to estimate them in the Fourth Assessment.  There are at least several pages about them in Climate Change 2007: They Physical Science Basis.  Their estimate of radiative forcing from linear contrails is quite small, much less than the other players, but they do admit there's some uncertainty because once contrails spread out it's difficult to distinguish them from ordinary cirrus. As for aviation aerosols as cloud nuclei, I think they admit they don't understand their role very well right now, so it's definitely worth studying.  The effects are mostly in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (that is, immediately above and below the tropopause, which is the boundary between the two).

Answer 4

get a grip all you global warming preachers.. Above the surface of the earth is space. Space is a very big place and the amount of heat energy we create from fossel fuels is only a whisper.....heat rises. its the law. Heat is energy, cannot be created nor destroyed, but changer from one order to another. if our universe changes,, nothing you or can do about it. You might consider the origional creator.