Well-understood physical and chemical processes can easily explain the alleged evidence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program, commonly referred to as "chemtrails" or "covert geoengineering," concludes a new study from Carnegie Science, University of California Irvine, and the nonprofit organization Near Zero.
Some groups and individuals erroneously believe that the long-lasting condensation trails, or contrails, left behind aircraft are evidence of a secret large-scale spraying program. They call these imagined features "chemtrails." Adherents of this conspiracy theory sometimes attribute this alleged spraying to the government and sometimes to industry.
The authors of this study, including Carnegie's Ken Caldeira, conducted a survey of the world's leading atmospheric scientists, who categorically rejected the existence of a secret spraying program. The team's findings, published by Environmental Research Letters, are based on a survey of two groups of experts: atmospheric chemists who specialize in condensation trails and geochemists working on atmospheric deposition of dust and pollution.
The survey results show that 76 of the 77 participating scientists said they had not encountered evidence of a secret spraying program, and agree that the alleged evidence cited by the individuals who believe that atmospheric spraying is occurring could be explained through other factors, such as typical airplane contrail formation and poor data sampling.
