Did I Just Come Across The 'Chemtrail' Smoking Gun?

Part 2

ARIA’s approach to geoengineering is quite simple. They present an equation for the surface temperature of the earth (derived from the Stefan-Boltzmann black body radiation law) and then logically conclude that in order to reduce the temperature of the planet, one or more of the variables in that formula must be altered so as to reduce the surface temperature:

The variables are:

α - the earth’s albedo, a measure of how much of the Sun’s radiation is absorbed and how much is reflected back into space.

S - the effective solar constant, a measure of how much radiation from the Sun reaches planet earth.

ϵ - the effective emissivity of the atmosphere, a measure of how effective the earth radiates energy from its surface into space compared to an ideal ‘black body’. Note, this is distinct from the albedo.

Emissivity is defined as the power radiated by a surface divided by the power radiated from a black body of the same surface area and temperature.

Stars are near perfect black bodies (ϵ = 1) radiating energy into space. Cool planets - which generally don’t generate much of their own radiative power - are very far from ideal black bodies (ϵ < 1) and in practice, their atmospheres affect how efficiently (or not) they emit radiation into space.

ARIA proposes three main methods (Table 1) by which these variables can be altered via geoengineering techniques:

Marine cloud brightening consists of collecting sea salt from the oceans and seeding low level marine clouds with it, making them whiter and more reflective, thus reducing the amount of radiation which reaches the sea surface. Space based reflectors are self-explanatory (and crazier even than marine cloud brightening). Both though can be said to be ‘dimming the sun’. Not so with the last - cirrus cloud thinning. By thinning high altitude cirrus clouds, the surface gets more sunlight but at night, especially, when the surface radiates long wave infra-red radiation back into space, less cirrus clouds means less long wave radiation is impeded as it heads towards space, thus cooling the surface. By reducing the thickness and density of cirrus clouds, scientists hope to cool the surface by allowing more heat to escape at night, which more than compensates for the modest increase in solar insolation during the day.

ARIA cite two academic references for this cirrus cloud thinning, which they propose as one of the ways to reduce surface temperature. And this is where it gets interesting. First, reference 42, Modification of cirrus clouds to reduce global warming. Published in 2009, the authors write:

2. Geoengineering idea

The essence of this idea was described under conclusions in Mitchell et al (2008). The idea relates to the interaction between homogeneous and heterogeneous ice nucleation in cirrus clouds, which has been recently the focus of much research. The main distinction here is the linking of this topic to the ice fall speed (which was also done by Lohmann et al 2008) and the application to the field of geoengineering.

An important process for ice crystal production in cirrus clouds is homogeneous freezing nucleation, which seems fairly well understood (Sassen and Dodd 1988, Heymsfield and Sabin 1989, Koop et al 2000,DeMott2002,Linet al 2002, M¨ ohler et al 2003, Haag et al 2003a, Koop 2004). At temperatures below −37◦C, homogeneous freezing nucleation on haze droplets often prevails and ice supersaturations (Si) are relatively high (e.g. ∼45–60%) in cirrus clouds. Heterogeneous ice nucleation generally occurs at lower Si and insoluble aerosol particles that nucleate ice crystals in this way can out-compete the homogeneous freezing ice nuclei for water vapor. Heterogeneous ice nuclei include crystal or mineral particles (e.g. Zuberi et al 2002,DeMottet al 2003a, Richardson et al 2007) and some types of soot (e.g. K¨ archer 1996, Jensen and Toon 1997, DeMott et al 1997, K¨ archer et al 2007). Homogeneous freezing nucleation is thought to dominate ice crystal production at temperatures less than −40◦C(K¨ archer and Spichtinger 2009), consistent with the higher Si observed in this temperature regime (e.g. Str¨om et al 2003). If so, then the introduction of very efficient heterogeneous ice nuclei at these cold temperatures in the right concentration may result in larger ice crystals as the heterogeneous ice nuclei would out-compete the homogeneous freezing nuclei.

That all sounds very technical but basically the authors are saying that by introducing artificial ice nuclei into the upper atmosphere, they can prevent homogeneous ice nucleation taking place (which forms thicker, denser cirrus clouds) and instead cause heterogeneous ice nucleation (larger, ‘lumpier’ ice formation) to take place, which would result in less dense cirrus, which would tend to fall more quickly to lower levels because the crystals are more massive. They suggest bismuth tri-iodide as a suitable chemical to start this heterogeneous ice nucleation process:

Substances exist that nucleate ice crystals as effectively as silver iodide (AgI, the best ice nucleant known) at cirrus cloud temperatures, and some are relatively inexpensive and non-toxic (see section 2.1). If significantly larger, these artificially seeded ice crystals would fall faster, and their higher fall velocities may lead to reduced cirrus cloud coverage as predicted in GCM simulations (Mitchell et al 2008, Sanderson et al 2008). The lower cirrus cloud coverage would result in greater OLR and cooler surface temperatures, thus reducing the impact of global warming. It is important to note that the decrease in cirrus coverage would occur where the cirrus greenhouse effect is strongest (i.e. temperatures <−40◦C). This is a key principle for this geoengineering idea.

An ideal ice nucleating agent for cirrus geoengineering would be one having a high effectivity (for ice nucleation) at temperatures colder than ∼−20◦C, but a very low effectivity at warmer temperatures. Bismuth tri-iodide (BiI3) had been investigated as an ice nucleant for weather modification programs but was unsuitable because its effectivity threshold was below −10◦C. However, this makes it a suitable ice nucleant for geoengineering, targeting primarily cirrus clouds and not the clouds normally targeted in cloud seeding experiments. In addition, BiI3 is non-toxic and reagent grade bismuth metal is about 1/12th the cost of silver, suggesting BiI3 would be about 1/12th the cost of AgI

Being non-toxic, this doesn’t lend justification to the claims of the geoengineering conspiracy theorists that we are being, or about to be, ‘sprayed like bugs’ with toxic substances such as aluminium and barium. But then those people are never quite sure if the plan is to poison us, create or ‘steer’ bad weather, or simply ‘block our sun’. The 2009 geoengineering idea put forward in this study fits none of those categories, but it might just explain ‘chemtrails’ if (and that’s a very big if) governments and ‘philanthropists’ have teamed up all over the world to secretly hack our skies to halt global warming. This:

Since commercial airliners routinely fly in the region where cold cirrus clouds exist, it is hoped that the seeding material could either be (1) dissolved or suspended in their jet fuel and later burned with the fuel to create seeding aerosol, or (2) injected into the hot engine exhaust, which should vaporize the seeding material, allowing it to condense as aerosol in the jet contrail. The objective would not be to seed specific cloud systems but rather to build up a background concentration of aerosol seeding material so that the air masses that cirrus will form in will contain the appropriate amount of seeding material to produce larger ice crystals. Since the residence time of seeding material might be on the order of 1–2 weeks, release rates of seeding material would need to account for this. With the delivery process already existing, this geoengineering approach may be less expensive than other proposed approaches.

So there you are; the authors propose adding the seeding material to the fuel or injecting it into the exhaust, not spraying it from nozzles on the wings, note. Is there any evidence for the mass adulteration of jet fuel with bismuth tri-iodide or other chemicals? That would be a sensible question to ask. Is there any evidence from in situ chemical analysis of bismuth tri-iodide or other chemicals present in persistent contrails? That would be another sensible question to ask. Because what these authors are suggesting is that, regardless it seems of any international laws or ethical objections to engineering upper atmospheric cloud formation globally, we just add this seeding material to commercial jet fuel and see if their theory works in practice. What a brilliant idea! And here’s the thing: this seeding will not immediately dissipate cirrus clouds, it will form artificial cirrus clouds behind commercial jet engine exhausts. But supposedly, these heterogeneous ice nuclei clouds will fall faster to lower levels and the net result will be a drying of the upper atmosphere where natural cirrus form, thereby reducing high level cirrus and preventing these clouds from trapping long wave radiation from the surface.

Aircraft (Helten et al 1998, Spichtinger et al 2004) and microwave limb sounder (MLS) satellite measurements (Read et al 2001, Spichtinger et al 2003) show that large portions of the clear-sky upper troposphere are supersaturated with respect to ice. While natural cirrus may or may not form in these regions over time, the global, quasi-uniform distribution and continuous introduction of efficient heterogeneous ice nuclei might produce more cirrus clouds in these regions than would otherwise occur. Over time, the relatively large ice crystals would sediment to lower levels and warmer temperatures where the cirrus greenhouse effect is less. Water vapor concentrations in the upper troposphere should decrease with this export of moisture to lower levels, and the water vapor greenhouse effect in the upper troposphere should decrease. In fact, the upper troposphere water vapor content in GCMs (affecting the clear-sky OLR) is sometimes ‘tuned’ by changing the ice fall speed.

The process of geoengineering described by these authors is uncannily similar to that which we observe to be happening in our skies: jet contrail cirrus have become more frequent and it seems more persistent and if, as described by the authors, these are geoengineered ‘heterogeneous’ ice nucleated cirrus, they are falling faster than natural cirrus and thus humidifying the lower troposphere where natural rain clouds form and this might explain the perception that we are getting more rain and more low level cloud cover following the ‘spraying of chemtrails’.

This is all conjecture of course and as yet, there is no hard evidence that the theory outlined by this 2009 study was enacted in practice, secretly, by governments all over the world. That would indeed be truly extraordinary. But it’s odd and somewhat disturbing to say the least that the British government in 2025 has given the go ahead for ‘small scale experiments’ citing this very study - which is basically advocating one big global experiment using commercial airlines to deliver seeding materials into the upper troposphere. Weird. Is it the smoking gun of the chemtrail conspiracy? I don’t know. But it’s not enough by itself. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We’re not there yet.