Warning On Pollution

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32385, 26 August 1970, Page 1

Warning On Pollution

One of the most sinister forms of air pollution known to man would be caused when supersonic aircraft began flying to large numbers, the meteorologist to charge at Christchurch Airport (Mr A. P. Ryan) told a meeting of the Christchurch branch of the Clean Air Society last evening. The aircraft would bum fuel at a fantastic rate—something like 100 to 150 tons on a transatlantic flight—and would produce enormous quantities of carbon dioxide, Mr Ryan said. “When carbon dioxide Is produced at heights greater than about 55,000 feet, certain factors prevent it from being removed, as is normally the case, by the surface of the sea,” he went on. “If the carbon dioxide cannot be removed, the level will rise, causing a ‘greenhouse effect,’ or a general rising of temperature, and this could cause a melting of the icecaps and an increase in the intensity and frequency of cyclones of a kind never seen before.”