From PC Mag: Google is using AI to help pilots route their flights on more environmentally conscious paths.
Google Research joined forces with American Airlines and Breakthrough Energy to see if they could use AI to create flight paths that produced fewer contrails, the thin white lines you often see behind planes. A 2022 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that they account for around 35% of aviation’s total global warming impact, or more than half the impact jet fuel has on the environment across the entire world.
Contrails are created when airplanes fly through humidity and can stick around for minutes or even hours after a plane has moved on. Over a six-month period, a group of pilots from American Airlines tested Google’s AI-based predictions cross-referenced with Breakthrough Energy’s open-source contrail models over 70 different flights, attempting to avoid altitudes where contrails might be created.
The early results of the test, announced today, are fairly promising.
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