Plane carbon emissions set to be cut as University of Portsmouth receives £10,000 in UK Space research project

Contrails, also known as ‘condensation trails’, are crystal clouds that form when warm moist exhaust fumes from the engine mix with the cold air.

The project, called FLight Optimisation using Contrail Knowledge (FLOCK) preparatory study, will be conducted by the University of Portsmouth in partnership with PolyChord Ltd and is being funded by the national Sprint business support programme.

The contrails warm the climate and it is expected to only get worse as time goes on, having a significant impact on global warming.

Christopher Mcquire, head of local growth at the UK Space Agency, said: ‘We are pleased to help develop these projects, which support some of our key Earth observation goals.

‘Being able to monitor the impact of aircraft on cloud formation, provide nature data for land management, and recycle space products are all important to helping us build a more sustainable future. We look forward to seeing the results of these projects as they develop.’

The University of Portsmouth, the University of Southampton and the University of Surrey are three of the universities that have been chosen to work alongside Interstellar Space Technologies Ltd, PolyChord Ltd, and Viridian Logic Ltd and Omanos Analytics.

The universities will each receive £10,000 of funding to help develop the study so that they can construct proposals surrounding the project.

Dr Lucinda King, space project manager at the University of Portsmouth’s institute of cosmology and gravitation, said: ‘This preparatory study will raise awareness of this little-known but important contributing factor to global warming, and will put us and our partner PolyChord Ltd. in a strong position to potentially pursue further research in this area in the future.

‘The end goal is to use these forecasts to inform airline flight path planning, so we can try and mitigate the significant net global warming impact of contrails.’

The projects conducted by the universities will aim to help address the challenges that are being faced in the space sector and the problems arising with climate change.