By Guy Taylor
An exciting new study has shown that artificial intelligence can help airlines reduce contrails – the white vapour trails seen behind planes – by as much as 50 per cent.
Contrails are responsible for approximately 35 per cent of global aviation emissions. The seemingly harmless white lines trap escaping heat within the Earth’s atmosphere and form when carriers’ fly through layers of humid air.
American Airlines partnered with Google Research and Breakthrough Energy in a first of its kind study, which used a combination of AI and open-source models to predict where contrails would be formed and re-route flight paths accordingly.
Over a six month period, the AI-created contrail forecast maps enabled 70 pilots participating in the study to reduce their formation by 54 per cent, according to satellite imagery analysed by Google Research.
It is one of the first examples of commercial flights being able to avoid contrails and reduce their impact on the environment.
Marc Shapiro, director of Breakthrough Energy contrails team, said that “avoiding contrails might be one of the best ways to limit aviation’s climate impact, and now we have a clear demonstration that it’s possible to do so.”
Jill Blickstein, vice president of sustainability at American Airlines, noted the “small-scale” of the test but said the results were “encouraging.”
“While clearly there are more questions to answer about how to operationalize contrails avoidance across our industry, we’re excited to have played a role in establishing this first proof point.”
