Cathay Pacific tests Google AI that dramatically cuts airplane contrails — tiny altitude shifts slash environmental impact by 40% in early trials
- Google's contrail mitigation tech is expanding to a new region
- It uses AI to get planes to avoid cold, humid air
- Contrails account for a third of aviation's impact on the climate
Following similar projects across US airspace and the North Atlantic ocean, Google is partnering with the Cathay-Pacific airline to test its AI-powered contrail (condensation trail) mitigation technology on flights across the Asia-Pacific region.
Contrails are the thin, ice-crystal streaks of cloud that form behind planes when they hit cold, humid air. Some of these contrails can persist in the atmosphere, eventually spreading into cloud-like formations that stop heat escaping to space. It's thought that contrails account for around a third of the total climate impact of the aviation industry.
Google's idea is to use AI algorithms to nudge flights around the areas of cold and humid air that contrails need to form. Early trials with 80 Cathay-Pacific...
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