this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
30 points (94.1% liked)
Bicycling
3221 readers
26 users here now
A community for those who enjoy bicycling for any reason— utility, recreation, sport, or whatever!
Post your questions, experiences, knowledge, pictures, news, links, and (civil) rants.
Rules (to be added on an as-needed basis)
- Comments and posts should be respectful and productive.
- No ads or commercial spam, including linking to your own monetized content.
- Linked content should be as unburdened by ads and trackers as possible.
Welcome!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You're right, I misremembered. It's not the CO2 that has a higher effect when released at altitude than on the ground.
It's Nitrogen Oxides, water vapor and soot.
"In 1999, the IPCC estimated aviation's radiative forcing in 1992 to be 2.7 (2 to 4) times that of CO2 alone − excluding the potential effect of cirrus cloud enhancement.[6] This was updated for 2000, with aviation's radiative forcing estimated at 47.8 mW/m2, 1.9 times the effect of CO2 emissions alone, 25.3 mW/m2.[7]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation#Factors