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The environmental impact of flying at night could be twice that of daytime flights, new research has found.

As well as being the bane of those residing in the environs of airports, night flights could also be bowling a googly to the environment.

A report by the University of Reading's meteorology department has found that while one in four flights is at night, they contribute to 60% to 80% of the aviation industry's impact on the greenhouse effect.

The study, published in Nature, shows aircraft condensation trails, or contrails, can both cause global warming and cool down the earth.

The contrails reflect some of the sun's energy back to space, which cools the earth, but at the same time they trap energy emitted from the Earth's surface and atmosphere, so leading to a warming.

However, at night the trails have no cooling effect not reflecting the sun so the warming effect is considerably greater.

Project leader Dr Piers Forster said: 'Night flights are twice as bad for the environment.

'If the government wanted to reduce the likely impact of aviation on climate then it could ensure that more flew during the day.'

Principal researcher Dr Nicola Stuber added: 'As well as discovering that this small proportion of night-time flights contributes in such a significant way to climate warming, we also found that flights between December and February contribute half of the annual mean climate warming even though they account for less than a quarter of annual air traffic.'


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