Determining the effects of the formation of contrails within natural cirrus clouds has proven\nto be challenging. Quantifying any such effects is necessary if we are to properly account for\nthe influence of aviation on climate. Here we quantify the effect of aircraft on the optical\nthickness of already-existing cirrus clouds by matching actual aircraft flight tracks to satellite\nlidar measurements. We show that there is a systematic, statistically significant increase in\nnormalized cirrus cloud optical thickness inside mid-latitude flight tracks compared with\nadjacent areas immediately outside the tracks.
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