A typical flight to the tropics has a greater impact on global warming than a flight in temperate latitudes. As well as producing carbon dioxide and contrails, planes also produce nitrogen oxide, which triggers both the creation of the warming gas ozone, and the destruction of another greenhouse gas, methane. In mid-latitudes, these ozone and methane reactions cancel each other out and you get zero net warming from nitrogen oxide emissions. But the brighter sunlight in the tropics is very efficient at converting nitrogen oxide to ozone - in fact it creates ozone five times faster than in the air of mid-latitudes

Original post by Ketaketa and software by Elliott Back