Magnificient Skies And Brilliant Colors Like Never Before
April 6, 2020
The Corona crisis is an unparalleled situation and there is no bright side to this. It would have been wonderful if we could have made observations about changes in the atmosphere, weather and perhaps climate change under different circumstances. Nevertheless, it appears there is a unique chance for a potentially positive change in the future. For some days we see for the time how a sky would look like with little or no pollution in the air.
When the crisis reached Europe and the rest of the world air traffic declined. In Germany, there was a lockdown after middle of march. There are fewer planes operating. We now see an immediate effect: In Middle Europe, there was a high-pressure weather pattern in March and is still lasting in April. The air became clear and cold with some dust in the morning. However, there was a new quality in the atmosphere.
Over the last years there was a lot of pollution in the atmosphere due to increasing air traffic. The contrails never disappeared. The sky always looked dirty. It looked liked as the atmosphere couldn’t take any more. It was too much pollution. The result was often a strange sky with unusual clouds which presumably inspired the “Chemtrail Conspiracy theory”.
Now we have a chance to see how a sky without pollution and air-plane traffic looks like. It is not only like looking through a window which was cleaned up after a long time. We see different colors. There is some otherworldliness too it. It is like entering a different realm, a world remembered from childhood days for the elder generation.
The absence of pollution and air traffic doesn’t only mean clear skies and great colors. It looks like a healthier world and might have also effects for weather and climate. Hopefully there is a chance for scientists to do research even the circumstances appear difficult.
Air traffic created an artificial cloud layer on many days. Thus, there was less cooling in the night. The pollution added to global warming. We will see how weather patterns develop if there is little or now pollution in the upper atmosphere.
There is another interesting question: We don’t know very much about cloud development and how the increased air traffic has changed the development of clouds as rain clouds. Over the last years climate change led to many droughts. Scientists say this is mostly because of the CO2 emission but perhaps there are other factors. If we see more clouds now like we had a long time ago it could mean that air traffic had a much bigger impact than previously assumed.
