FACT CHECK: Are contrails the same as chemtrails?

An Instagram video misrepresents contrail as chemtrail based on size.

“Chemtrail vs contrail and the moon as a witness to the sickness,” the Instagram caption reads.

The hashtags “#chemtrailawareness” and “#wedonotconsent” were added to the post with 461 likes.

The video shows a blue sky with two white streaks. One of the white lines is notably larger than the other.

WHAT ARE CONTRAILS

Contrails are formed when water vapour and fine soot particles from burning jet fuel freeze into ice crystals at high altitudes. The white lines in the Instagram images are scientifically called contrails.

The difference in humidity actually explains why some planes produce vapour trails and others do not. Humidity is also responsible for making contrails less visible during winter.

In clear air having no cloud, contrails disappear quickly, such that the ice particles change from solid to gas. However, if the atmosphere is humid, the ice particles can not transform from solid to gas, therefore, they remain visible as trails long after the passage of the aircraft.

CHEMTRAILS

Over the years, airplane contrails have been the subject of several conspiracy theories by climate deniers.

Conspiracy amplifiers would rather call the white lines left behind by airplane in the sky chemtrails.

Some have said the white lines are deliberately sprayed from the aircraft to poison the environment or control weather. Others say the sprays are put in the skies by the government to weed out the old and sick.

These theories are baseless and do not align with scientific explanations.

Earlier in the year, TheCable debunked a similar claim.

INPUT FROM EXPERT

Gloria Okafor, a postdoctoral research scientist, at the Nigerian Maritime University in Delta state, told TheCable that the two white lines in the video are contrails, adding that the difference in their size is “inconsequential”.

Okafor, a university lecturer, said the difference in the length of the contrails is largely due to factors including wind direction, altitude, size of the airplane, and the condition of the atmosphere.

She added that the relative humidity of the shorter line is not as high as the long contrail.

VERDICT

The claim that one of the white lines is a chemtrail is misleading. Chemtrails do not exist. Both the long and short streaks in the video are airplane contrails.

This fact check was produced by TheCable with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, International Fact-Checking Network, and African Fact Checking Alliance network.

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