Everybody has seen the white lines that follow airplanes in the sky as they looked up. Scientists have been attempting to figure out how to prevent contrails, which are icy clouds that contribute to climate change. In order to determine whether AI can be helpful, a £5 million UK project will anticipate where warming contrails are likely to occur and direct aircraft to avoid certain locations.
The Shanwick Oceanic airspace in the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor, which is responsible for about 5% of global contrail warming, will be the main emphasis. Google, the UK government, the Met Office, National Air Traffic Services (NATS), an air traffic control company, and researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge collaborate on the 30-month Operation Blue Skies initiative.
Contrails, sometimes referred to as vapour trails, are formed when cold air at high altitudes combines with hot aircraft engine exhaust to form ice crystals. Many of them vanish quickly, but in extremely cold and humid weather, they can linger and spread, creating clouds that trap heat that would otherwise escape the Earth. Google’s technical head for the project, Dr. Paul Hodgson, told the BBC’s Tech Life show that his five-year-old calls the white lines “sky graffiti” in a more colourful way.
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