Ground-based astronomy may be almost impossible by 2050 as global warming causes a dramatic increase in cloud cover.
Clouds and aircraft condensation trails, or contrails, already hamper astronomy, says Gerry Gilmore, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge. Worries about cloud cover prompted a study, which Gilmore chaired, to look into how global warming and rising air traffic will affect the forthcoming 100-metre-wide Overwhelmingly Large Telescope in Chile. This is one of a planned series of extremely large telescopes designed to observe the skies in unprecedented detail.
Contrails and global warming feed off each other, Gilmore says. 鈥淐ontrails increase global warming, and global warming helps larger contrails form.鈥�
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Though they realised that increasing cloud was a potential threat, astronomers did not appreciate the scale of the problem before the study, Gilmore says. 鈥淭he study shows that ground-based telescopes will be worthless by 2050.鈥�
Gilmore hopes to make the wider public aware of this overlooked consequence of global warming. 鈥淲e can only go to the least affected places and try to make governments pass laws to protect these sites,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut the future of cheap aeroplane transport and climate change is out of our hands.鈥�
