Comment on acp-2021-361

Abstract

Decades of research established the basic contrail ice formation pathway (activation of size-dispersed plume and ambient aerosols present in decaying jet aircraft exhaust plumes). The most important findings, used as the basis of an intentionally simplified parameterization scheme [Kärcher et al., 2015], have been confirmed by field measurements. This is particularly true, on a quantitative basis, for the number of contrail ice crystals as a function of aircraft-related parameters and ambient conditions.