Posted 1/16/2024, 9:50:00 PM
AI Helps Planes Adjust Altitudes to Reduce Climate-Changing Contrails by Half
- AI could be used to help planes avoid creating planet-warming contrails by making small altitude changes
- Contrails trap heat and account for 35% of aviation's climate impact
- Google and Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy used AI to identify the worst contrail-producing flight paths
- During test flights, pilots used that data to make slight altitude adjustments, decreasing contrails by over 50%
- There are tradeoffs - more fuel burned from descending, but contrails have a greater warming effect