The future of flight: Can AI make flying sustainable? | Google AI

Can AI make the future of flight more sustainable by accurately predicting contrail forming regions so pilots can choose better routes? Contrails (those fluffy, white clouds you sometimes see behind airplanes) are surprisingly responsible for about 35% of aviation’s global warming impact. Contrail avoidance could be the most cost-effective way to mitigate aviation’s climate impact. Learn more about this research at: g.co/research/contrails
Weather images at 2:43 courtesy of windy.com
Satellite images at 1:33 courtesy of Landsat/Copernicus.
Satellite images from 2:46-4:01 and 5:08-5:12 courtesy of Landsat.
Satellite images from 4:01-4:17 courtesy of GOES-16/NOAA.
Research papers:
Sridhar, Banavar & Ng, Hok & Chen, Neil. (2011). Aircraft Trajectory Optimization and Contrails Avoidance in the Presence of Winds. Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics. 34. 10.2514/1.53378.
Meijer, Vincent R, Kulik, Luke, Eastham, Sebastian D, Allroggen, Florian, Speth,
Raymond L et al. 2022. "Contrail coverage over the United States before and during the
COVID-19 pandemic." Environmental Research Letters, 17 (3).
Meerkötter, R. & Schumann, Ulrich & Dölling, D.R. & Minnis, Patrick & Nakajima, Takakau & Tsushima, Y.. (1999). Radiative Forcing by Contrails. Annales Geophysicae. 17. 1080-1094. 10.1007/s00585-999-1080-7.
Adapted with permission from Mitigating the Climate Forcing of Aircraft Contrails by Small-Scale Diversions and Technology Adoption. Roger Teoh, Ulrich Schumann, Arnab Majumdar, and Marc E. J. Stettler. Environmental Science & Technology 2020 54 (5), 2941-2950, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.9b05608
Teoh, R., Schumann, U., Gryspeerdt, E., Shapiro, M., Molloy, J., Koudis, G., Voigt, C., and Stettler, M. E. J.: Aviation contrail climate effects in the North Atlantic from 2016 to 2021, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 10919-10935, doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10919-..., 2022.
Research papers licensed under CC BY 4.0.
creativecommons.org/licenses/...

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Yes, it's also a company who tracks every move you make in the digital world. #privacymatters

[@newsverse-ir6rc]

Hok K. Ng has been with NASA for years, and he's worked on all kinds of excellent aerospace projects.

[@BMRFORYOU]

Can we not put HD cameras at the back of the aircraft and keep a check if the aircraft is creating a contrail and change the altitude accordingly?. I am not an expert but just a thought I couldn't resist.

[@kokobird]

Think there are already cameras at the planes you can see at the tv

[@joancarlesfortea3613]

That's so inspiring and we would like to help with the new Meteosat satellite and the Copernicus satellite constellation, mainly in the nigh contrail detection. Let's go

[@billyshearin685]

Always wondered! Explained perfectly for myself to understand

[@jorgemadrazo6512]

I guess they are just scratching the surface to look at it in a simple way, but what about all the metal particles and poisonous chemicals that are sprayed too? those are not a matter of humidity.

[@jasonbradley6447]

Correct sir, you're talking about chemtrails, which I heard is for controlling weather, allegedly?

[@keithb2044]

@@jasonbradley6447 This man didn't say anything about chemtrails. He is talking about jet fuel pollution. Getting rid of contrails is a good thing, but to cheer it on as if it solves the pollution problem of the airline industry is naive. See links below. Toxic metals in jet fuel is not a theory. www.tanker-enemy.com/PDF/U.Lohmann-Jet-Fuel-Study.pdf scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=jet+fuel+soot&btnG=

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Chemtrails - Poisoning humanity!

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[@AshwinNarayananS]

Wow! That's very inspiring!

[@fecorekasi]

Yes, contrails, which are condensation trails formed by the water vapor emitted from aircraft engines, can indeed trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere. They are essentially human-made clouds that form when the hot water vapor from jet engines cools and condenses in the cold upper atmosphere¹. Contrails can contribute to both atmospheric warming and cooling. However, the warming effect is particularly notable for contrails that form at night or persist into the night. This is because the Earth undergoes radiative cooling at night, where heat radiates from the surface into space. Contrails can act like a thermal blanket, trapping this heat and thus contributing to warming². The overall warming effect of contrails is still considered small, but it is a subject of ongoing research and environmental concern, especially as air traffic continues to increase⁴. Source: Conversation with Copilot

[@luislicea8463]

wow congrats, that's fascinating, what to work with you guys!

[@phillies4eva]

You all rock!! Keep up the great work

[@georgererat]

Interesting concept. Generally planes, choose to fly at a higher altitude for multiple reasons, including better fuel economy, less weather and faster speeds. Any model to try to determine would need to balance the fuel economy and increase speed if it was suggesting going to a lower altitude as you would offset or perhaps lose all gains.

[@RobinBriones86]

They said that just changing altitudes by a small fraction, they will get rid of contrails. Some cases they might go to higher altitudes.

[@mwongerakarambu4912]

and this is definitely being considered: airlines really dont want to burn more fuel than they have to as they pay for it, they dont pay for contrail creation (yet?) But remember it is only a small fraction of flights needing a (relatively) small change in altitude. The fuel burn increase on the flight may be 1-5%, but on a fleet average it would be fractions of a percent - to decrease 30 to 50% of the impact!! There are few things we can do that provide this much reduction in warming at so little cost, this even beats swapping gas heating for a heat pump!

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[@ProMSL]

@@mwongerakarambu4912 where are you getting this 30-50% from, did I miss it in the video? Im actually curious myself, about how much extra fuel burned(carbon footprint) it would take vs the effect a contrail has.

[@MDShahinMolla-uq6jx]

0:41

[@shortyd999]

I have always wondered what those white trails were seemingly coming out the back of the plane. So I was once told it was the government making rain clouds 😭😔🐻‍❄️🤍🔙🔂☔🌧️😞😦😨😮

[@MyloveDRM]

Great video

[@Mike-zr9wq]

Very interesting, but can't we fit a humidity scanner in the cone of the plane so we have real-time data? This would make a huge impact. But congratulations to you guys for wanting to make a change

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Lh

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😊

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😊

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Thank for sharing👍

[@Flyer7375]

So interesting and educating - and that, two decades after retirement from a career in aviation. 😊

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[@kwhite145]

It's condensation like what occurs when a car is running

[@MarigoldHoney-ly1vg]

This was so inspiring and elating! I'm so happy to see some improvements being made with the aviation industry regarding it's environmental impacts! 🎉

[@MrandMrsWestie]

tf 0:20 3 0:20

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[@PesarTarofi]

Do these contrails even exist outside of America?

[@vedantupadhyay42]

they do, here in india.

[@joancarlesfortea3613]

It's also great to how the contrails formation can help the meteorological models giving them humidity information of the higher atmospheric layers, that can be used also in the correction of satellites images. That's amazing and really promising. Science exciting. :)

[@hupa1a]

Great work!

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Miamor

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[@kristoferkrus]

Incredible! This sounds like such an obvious thing to do, considering that such a great climate impact is caused by such a small amount of planes. As a research scientist using machine learning to do climate research myself, I applaud you for realizing that this can be done, and then actually doing something about it. On another note, is it just me, or do the voices sound a bit robot like at times? It sounds like Autotune has been used to make their pitch jump in really weird ways. What's going on? For example at 3:28 and 4:12. Maybe really aggressive noise reduction because of wind?

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The weird voices are a bunch of junk scientists hocking a bunch of bs

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0:18

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[@RobinBriones86]

Amazing ! That's how technology and AI should work together from now on...

[@truthbetold3994]

I bet reflecting light back into the sky using giant mirrors dont help with heat...

[@mrcyborg9216]

So a AI can help the plane navigate in places that are dry?

[@wilhermes]

Altitudes, yes

[@mrcyborg9216]

5 months later, I have no clue what I put.

[@DanielChe]

Wow, thats amazing! Yhank you guys!

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Thank you for your valuable information 🙏

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like planet adaptation using magnets

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This is so cool!!

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How ☁️ computing used to recognised climate change policy with the 🧮 humidity in the 🌌🚀 which has to helpful for next generation?

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[@ignaciohavok1]

Why didn’t they match flight data and satellite imagery? Reduced human input.

[@iTube2772]

Does someone know, if the airplane itself can detect contrails? then they can make altitude corrections themselves.

[@SteveLEKORodrigue]

Theoretically possible with back camera/radar and humidity sensors that could detect their presence I suppose. Would be a nice addition to future airplane.

[@varughstan]

This is probably a better solution than what Google proposed. It can be detected using a bunch of sensors. Like a catalytic converter for cars, a similar device can be used to eliminate the contrails by processing the exhaust before it is ejected.

[@SteveLEKORodrigue]

@@varughstan: Probably complementary. Some routes could be "predefined" with AI, but fine-tuned in flight with the sensor data. The advantage of an off-plane solution is that it helps any plane (no need to retrofit the sensors). But, I totally agree the best solution would be to have onboard sensors similar to "lane detection in modern cars". The pilots would be informed of contrail generation/presence as it happens to act (or not) upon it.

[@durupativaswani3737]

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[@rahularyan6038]

This is great ❤😊

[@KAZAM707]

If everyone is on board and good to go, what are the costs involved in avoiding contrails? More fuel use? Wear on parts?

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Google is world ❤😊

[@samuelsofa]

Chemtrail whoops I meant contrails seem a bit SUS

[@terrytzaneros8007]

👍Looks like he's up to his old tricks.

[@AAE_P]

THANKS

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❤️

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Wonderful film! The music score is fantastic too! ❤

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ف

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Nice efforts

[@itsMohak]

It's actually very interesting research. I never knew that contrails can be this problematic. It's great to see you do in-depth work towards that perspective. Well done Google. Proud of you

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Amazing!!!!

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Okomentujete jako

[@truthbetold3994]

Clouds are next

[@nolwenncoz3133]

0:17

[@hemanthsivakesh6250]

Simple words or simplify please

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WOW

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this is so entertaining to watch

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Word !

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Okay dealing with existing examples of solutions to pollutions issues like dealing with massive amounts of damages in disaster situations including environment conditditions there would be facts of assistance for third party areas dealing with which ever concerns including coronavirus shut downs impact payments involved in aftermath situations

[@christophermoniz7809]

How does contrails differ from clouds that reflect sunlight and cool the earth? Like what is proposed by certain geoengineering projects. Or the cooling effect of exhaust trails by boats

[@DanielKolbin]

very interesting

[@ArmouredSP]

What's up with the voices in this video?

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Yes make do

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Keren

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Bitte mach das a6ß 🎉 3:22

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Schönat 4:29 4:37

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😊

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قمة ‏‪4:13‬‏

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BRAVO... great efforts for saving the future generations...

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1:53

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Did... did google just join the chemtrail conspiracy theory?

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1:17

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Great work Google team!

[@samgold9151]

Can you provide? On February 8, 2026 All the airplanes in the USA. In USA American English Language In Japanese Language 1# Deaf Individuals must require subtitles Request Languages Deaf Accessible caption in USA American English Language or Japanese Language off of the screens that they use. Or American Sign Language ASL or Japanese Sign Language JSL interpreting the situation on the screen for passenger seat. 2# Blind Individuals must require accessible transport Request Languages Blind Accessible entering the facility finding your passenger seat. Or Language of American Braille ABor Language of Japanese Braille JB on Seats the situation on the Features for passenger seat.

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تم

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Yes it is...