Google AI Tackles Aviation Climate Impact With £5M Contrail Avoidance Trial Over North Atlantic

Planes flying over the Atlantic will be re-routed to avoid contrails | New Scientist

Planes flying across the North Atlantic Ocean this winter will be re-routed to avoid causing condensation trails, in a first-of-a-kind trial to address the global warming impact of contrails across an entire airspace. Starting later this year, air traffic controllers managing the Shanwick airspace on the eastern side of the North Atlantic will advise planes to adjust their altitude to avoid creating fresh contrails. The controllers will be using AI-generated forecasts of atmospheric conditions from Google that predict where contrails will form. "We can predict the regions that are going to form persistent climate-warming contrails, and we can re-route planes around them," Marc Shapiro at Contrails.org, a research organisation that is participating in the project, said during a press briefing on 17 August. Contrails are formed when soot particles emitted by jet engines trigger the formation of ice particles, leaving a condensation trail that can last for hours. During the day, these persistent contrails help to reflect solar radiation back to space, which has a cooling effect. But they also trap heat below them, causing warming. Overall, contrails are thought to account for around one-third of aviation's climate impact. The Shanwick airspace is a contrail hotspot and a busy area for planes crossing the North Atlantic. Modelling suggests the airspace is responsible for about 5 per cent of global contrail warming, and most of this effect occurs during the winter season between November and February. The £5 million Operation Blue Skies project will re-route flights in the evening and night, which have the biggest warming effect. Pilots entering the Shanwick airspace will be instructed to adjust their altitude by up to 2000 feet (600 metres) to avoid atmospheric conditions where contrail formation is likely. The advice will be issued under the same procedures already used by air traffic controllers to help pilots avoid turbulence or other weather conditions. The trial will run during two four-month winter trials over 2026-2027 and 2027-2028, with approximately 20 to 40 test days during each winter season. Around 10,000 flights are expected to pass through the airspace during trial hours each year, and hundreds will need to be re-routed to produce a statistically significant data set for analysis. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London will analyse the data from the trial. The climate benefit of avoiding contrails is worth any extra fuel burn from shifting flight paths, Paul Hodgson at Google UK said during the briefing. Re-routed flights may have to burn an additional 100 kilograms of fuel per aircraft while crossing the airspace, resulting in an additional few hundred kilograms of CO2 emitted. By comparison, "the contrail impact on those flights, especially at those times of day, is measured in the tonnes or even the tens of tonnes", he said. The project follows previous trials of Google's AI contrail forecasts, which have been used to inform airlines' flight plans before take-off and routes set by air traffic dispatchers. This work suggests re-routing a plane can cut contrail formation by 50 to 60 per cent. But this is the first time contrail forecasts will be used across an entire airspace, and airlines will not be able to opt out. "This is what we call an airspace-scale trial, where deviations will effectively be instructed from the air traffic controller and affect all of the aircraft that are flying in this particular region," said Hodgson.

UK puts Google AI on the flight path to fewer contrails

Trial will test whether small route and altitude tweaks can reduce aviation's warming impact Britain is putting Google AI in the flight-planning loop to see whether airliners can dodge the patches of sky where their vapor trails are most likely to stick around and warm the planet. The UK government is backing a trial to predict where persistent contrails will form over the North Atlantic and help participating aircraft avoid those areas by adjusting their routes or altitude. The Department for Transport is putting £2.6 million into the 30-month project, which will combine Met Office weather forecasts with Google's artificial intelligence to suggest alternative flight paths. Flight tests are scheduled for the winters of 2026-27 and 2027-28. Any route or altitude changes will go through normal air traffic control procedures and require the usual safety checks. Those white streaks behind aircraft aren't just an opportunity for conspiracy theorists to get excited. Contrails form when water vapor from jet exhaust freezes into ice crystals in cold, humid air. Many disappear quickly, but under the right atmospheric conditions they can hang around, spread out and develop into clouds that trap heat. Persistent contrails are therefore one of aviation's non-CO contributions to climate change - and potentially one that can be tackled without waiting for airlines to replace their fleets or invent a jet engine that runs on good intentions. The trial rests on the fact that contrail-friendly conditions occur only in particular regions and layers of the atmosphere. If forecasts can identify them accurately enough, aircraft could fly above, below, or around them. "We're partnering with Google to back British experts and innovators to find practical ways to make flying cleaner," said aviation minister Keir Mather. "By testing small tweaks to flight paths over the Atlantic, we can cut the vapour trails left behind by planes." There is, naturally, a trade-off. Changing an aircraft's route or altitude can burn additional fuel, potentially increasing its CO emissions even as it avoids a contrail. The trial will therefore need to establish whether the climate benefit of dodging persistent trails outweighs any extra fuel burned getting out of their way. The project joins a much larger pile of taxpayer cash being pointed at greener aviation. The government announced £219 million for sustainable aviation fuel production in June and is spending another £43 million on technologies including electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft. This experiment, though, does not require anyone to reinvent the airplane. The government and Google are betting that sometimes a greener flight path is only a few thousand feet away. ®

AI to help planes avoid climate-warming contrails above North Atlantic

We've all looked up and seen the white lines trailing behind aircraft in the sky. Known as contrails, these icy clouds contribute to climate change, and scientists have been trying to work out how to stop them. Now, a £5m UK trial will test whether AI can help, by predicting where warming contrails are likely to form and getting planes to avoid those areas. The 30-month Operation Blue Skies project brings together Google, the UK government, the Met Office, air traffic control provider National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and academic researchers. It will focus on the Shanwick Oceanic airspace in the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor which accounts for approximately 5% of global contrail warming. Contrails are made when the hot exhaust from aircraft engines meets the cold air at high altitude, creating ice crystals. Many disappear quickly, but in particularly cold and humid conditions they can persist and spread, forming clouds which trap heat that would otherwise escape from the Earth. Dr Paul Hodgson, Google's technical lead for Operation Blue Skies, told the BBC's Tech Life programme his five-year-old has a more colourful description for the white lines - "sky graffiti". "We think that contrail warming is responsible for something like a third of all aviation climate warming," he said. Dr Hodgson acknowledged there was uncertainty around the precise figure, but said scientists were confident it was "either quite a large problem or a very large problem". The idea behind the trial is that if scientists can predict the areas of the atmosphere where contrails are likely to form, aircraft could avoid them. Google will use satellite images and flight data to identify where planes have previously produced contrails. This is then combined with weather patterns to forecast where the conditions for new contrails are likely to occur. The information will be passed to NATS, where air traffic controllers can direct pilots to avoid those areas. Rather than dramatically changing the route of a flight, the trial will mostly involve changing an aircraft's altitude by around 2,000ft. This is something which already happens routinely to avoid turbulence and bad weather so passengers are unlikely to notice. Ian Jopson, director of sustainability at NATS, said it should be "pretty much business as usual using existing procedures for the operators on the North Atlantic". Testing will take place during selected evenings and nights in the winters of 2026-27 and 2027-28, when air traffic is lower. Around 10,000 flights are expected to pass through the airspace during the trial periods, although only a fraction will need to change altitude specifically to avoid contrails. The Department for Transport is providing £2.65m towards the programme, while Google is contributing £1.4m through AI research, engineering and computing infrastructure. Aviation Minister Keir Mather said the project would test "small tweaks to flight paths over the Atlantic" which could help make flying cleaner. "This is a world-first, and it's British ingenuity leading the way," he said. Changing the altitude of an aircraft can mean it burns more fuel, raising an obvious question - could avoiding contrails simply create additional carbon emissions elsewhere? Hodgson said previous trials suggested the additional fuel use was much smaller than the climate benefit of preventing a warming contrail. "The CO2 penalty is in the order of less than 1%, compared to the contrail cost, which is of a similar order magnitude to all of the CO2 of aviation," he said. Modelling for Operation Blue Skies suggests a full deviation through Shanwick would mean around 100kg of additional fuel per affected aircraft. Previous airline-level trials have achieved reductions of around 60-70% in contrail formation or warming, according to Hodgson. The project also comes as the government backs expansion of UK airports, raising the wider question of whether tech solutions can sufficiently reduce aviation's environmental impact as demand for flying grows. Google is also one of many big tech companies spending billions on new data centres - the giant, power-hungry banks of computer chips which power AI - which environmentalists are concerned will contribute even more to climate change. The results of Operation Blue Skies are expected to be published in academic literature and opened to wider scientific scrutiny. Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.

Operation Blue Skies: Google's AI takes on contrails

The UK government and Google are launching Operation Blue Skies, the first trial to route aircraft around climate-warming contrails across a whole ocean airspace. AI forecasts will tell North Atlantic controllers where the trails form. Contrails cause about a third of aviation's climate impact. It runs two winters. The UK government and Google are launching a trial to steer aircraft around climate-warming contrails. Google announced Operation Blue Skies on Tuesday. It is the first such effort across an entire ocean airspace. AI forecasts will predict where contrails form over the North Atlantic, and controllers will nudge planes to avoid those patches of sky. Contrails are the thin white lines behind aircraft. They form when water vapour in jet exhaust freezes around soot particles into ice. Many vanish in minutes. In cold, humid air they persist, spread into cirrus cloud, and trap heat. Google and the project partners put contrail warming at roughly a third of aviation's total climate impact. Paul Hodgson, Google's technical lead on the trial, gave the BBC a blunter version of the science. His five-year-old calls the lines "sky graffiti", he told the broadcaster's Tech Life programme. He added that the exact figure is uncertain. Scientists are confident it is "either quite a large problem or a very large problem", he said. What the trial actually does Operation Blue Skies runs in Shanwick airspace, the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor. That zone accounts for about 5 percent of global contrail warming, most of it in winter. The figure comes from the Aerospace Technology Institute, which is coordinating the public funding. The intervention is small. Google builds AI forecasts from satellite imagery, flight data and Met Office weather models to predict where persistent contrails will form. Those forecasts go to NATS, the UK air traffic control provider. Its controllers can then tell pilots to change altitude by up to 2,000 feet, enough to miss the contrail-forming layer. That manoeuvre is routine. Controllers already move aircraft to dodge turbulence and weather. The ATI said the deviations use standard air traffic control channels. New Scientist and the BBC reported that the trial focuses on evening and night flights. Those produce the strongest warming, because daytime contrails also reflect some sunlight back to space. The numbers behind it The programme is a £5mn, 30-month effort, the ATI said. The Department for Transport is putting in £2.65mn through the ATI Programme, and industry partners cover the rest. Google is taking part pro bono, contributing £1.4mn in kind through research, engineering time and computing. There are two operational trials, each about four months. They run across the winters of 2026 to 2027 and 2027 to 2028, with roughly 20 to 40 test days per winter. Around 10,000 flights pass through Shanwick during trial hours each year. Only a fraction will be re-routed, enough to produce a statistically useful data set. The consortium is a UK line-up. Google UK builds and verifies the models. NATS runs the airspace side and controller training. Contrails.org designs the trial parameters. Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge provide independent verification, and the Met Office supplies the forecasting. The ATI said all of the government grant goes to the academic, non-profit and aviation partners, not to Google. Does avoiding a contrail actually help? The obvious objection is fuel. Changing a plane's altitude burns more of it, which emits more carbon dioxide, so the trial has to show the climate benefit outweighs the penalty. The partners argue it does, and by a wide margin. A full deviation through Shanwick means about 100kg of extra fuel per aircraft, Hodgson told the briefing reported by New Scientist. He put the resulting carbon penalty at under 1 percent of the contrail warming avoided. He measured that warming "in the tonnes or even the tens of tonnes". The approach has a track record at smaller scale. Google has run earlier forecasts with American Airlines and others. The BBC reported those airline-level trials cut contrail formation or warming by around 60 to 70 percent. What is new here is that the instruction comes from the controller and covers every plane in the airspace, so airlines cannot opt out. The awkward backdrop The trial arrives as Google's own climate footprint grows. The BBC noted that Google, like its rivals, is spending billions on power-hungry data centres to run AI, which environmentalists warn adds to the emissions the company is elsewhere trying to cut. The desk has tracked that tension. Google's $15bn India data centre ran into water and wildlife objections this month. The company has also promised $44bn of rent on data-centre buildings it will never own. That buildout is the backdrop the BBC set the trial against. Google's AI power demand is reshaping where it builds, and its data centres draw large and rising amounts of electricity. The company is cutting aviation emissions in one place while its own energy use climbs in another. The UK government framed the trial as part of a broader push. Aviation minister Keir Mather called it "British ingenuity leading the way", and pointed to £219mn already committed to sustainable aviation fuel. That sits alongside the government's wider climate record, which this year included a UK solar generation record. What would prove it works Contrail avoidance is cheap next to rebuilding fleets or inventing new engines, which is what makes it attractive. It is also unproven at this scale, which is the entire point of the trial. Three results would settle it. A verified cut in contrail warming across the airspace, confirmed by the Cambridge and Imperial teams rather than the operator. Evidence that the fuel penalty stays as small as the partners claim once thousands of flights are involved. And a safety record clean enough that regulators would let controllers do this routinely. The findings are due in academic literature after the two winters run, opened to outside scrutiny. Until then it is the largest test yet of a cheap idea. Europe's worsening climate strain is the reason it is being tried at all.

Google and U.K. launch AI trial to reduce aircraft contrails

At cruising altitude, the hot gases expelled by jet engines can trigger ice crystal formation when they encounter cold, humid atmospheric conditions; those crystals sometimes linger and expand into cloud layers that retain heat. Google estimates contrail warming is responsible for around one third of aviation's total climate impact. The trial consortium includes Google U.K., air traffic control provider NATS, the Met Office, nonprofit research group Contrails.org, Imperial College London, and the University of Cambridge. Using satellite images and flight data, Google will pinpoint where aircraft have generated contrails in the past, then layer those findings against weather patterns to predict where new contrails are likely to form. NATS will then receive those forecasts so its controllers can steer pilots clear of the identified zones.

Operation Blue Skies: Reducing aviation climate impact with AI

When you look up at a clear sky and see thin white lines trailing behind airplanes, you're looking at condensation trails, or "contrails." These are clouds created when water vapor condenses around soot particles in jet exhaust. While they may seem harmless, these warming contrails account for roughly one third of aviation's total climate impact. Today, we're announcing a new step in our efforts to help the industry avoid contrails. Since publishing our initial research on ways AI can help mitigate contrail warming, we've partnered across the aviation industry, working alongside airlines such as American Airlines, air navigation service providers like EUROCONTROL's MUAC, and Flight Planning Software providers including FlightKeys, to demonstrate that avoiding warming contrails is both scientifically validated and operationally practical. Our AI-powered forecasts have enabled flight crews and air traffic controllers to make targeted adjustments that avoid contrail-sensitive regions while remaining within normal flight operations. Now, we're taking the next major step: expanding beyond individual airline trials to coordinated contrail mitigation across an entire flight corridor. We're launching Operation Blue Skies -- the world's first state-backed trial to avoid contrails at the scale of an entire oceanic airspace. Operation Blue Skies will operate within the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor, Shanwick airspace, which accounts for approximately 5% of global contrail warming. The 30 month program consists of two operational trials, each lasting approximately four months. Around 10,000 flights, originating from hundreds of cities, will pass through Shanwick airspace during trial hours each year and a small percentage of these flights that would otherwise pass through contrail-sensitive airspace will be slightly deviated, preventing them from forming strongly warming contrails.

Google partners with the aviation industry to try and prevent climate-warming contrails with AI

Google partners with the aviation industry to try and prevent climate-warming contrails with AI Google LLC today revealed it's partnering with the U.K. government and the country's aviation industry on a new initiative called Operation Blue Skies that aims to use artificial intelligence insights to reduce the impact of climate-warming contrails across an entire oceanic airspace. Contrails are the white clouds that sometimes form behind airplanes at cruising altitudes. They're created when water vapor condenses around the soot and other emissions from the jet exhaust, and they're extremely polluting, with some estimates claiming they account for around a third of the aviation industry's total climate impact. They usually form during cold, yet humid atmospheric conditions, and sometimes they can linger and expand into cloud layers that retain heat. According to Google, the plan behind Operation Blue Skies is to use AI to try and identify contrail-sensitive regions of the atmosphere, based on data gathered from earlier trials. It will pinpoint these regions using a combination of satellite imagery and historical flight data, then correlate these findings with weather forecasts to predict areas where contrails are most likely to form. It will provide these forecasts to the U.K.'s National Air Traffic Services or NATS, enabling its air traffic controllers to steer pilots clear of the zones it has identified. The idea is that flight crews can make minor, targeted deviations to their flight paths to prevent the contrails from forming, without disrupting flight operations. NATS will be in charge of managing the airspace and controlling air traffic, as well as conducting safety assessments during the trial. Google technical lead Paul Hodgson said the trial will last for 30 months in total, with two four-month long operational periods when flights will actually be redirected to try and avoid contrails. The focus is on the Shanwick airspace within the eastern North Atlantic corridor, which spans the eastern half of the North Atlantic ocean. According to Google, this specific region is responsible for around 5% of all global contrail warming. During the designated test windows, the corridor is expected to see around 10,000 flights in total, and between 1% and 5% of them will be redirected to avoid contrail-forming regions, Hodgson said. While that may not seem like a lot, it will be enough to demonstrate if avoiding the most contrail-prone regions leads to a significant reduction in contrail formation. Google and NATS will be joined in the initiative by the U.K.'s Met Office, which is responsible for providing the weather forecasts, and Contrails.org, which will help to design the trial parameters and handle the data analysis. Researchers from the Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge will also participate in the project to independently verify its climate impact. Google said the program is expected to cost around £5 million (around $6.76 million). The U.K.'s Department of Transport will put up £2.65 million, while Google's U.K. subsidiary, which is involved on a pro-bono basis, will contribute £1.4 million in the form of AI research, engineering time and computing resources. Hodgson said the hope is that Operation Blue Skies will be able to demonstrate that its operationally practical to solve the challenge of contrail warming and provide a validated blueprint for how to manage airspaces and reduce the aviation industry's climate impact.

Google Aims to Fight Airplane Contrails With Big New AI Trial

Google recently announced that it's partnered with the UK Government along with several big names within the aviation industry to launch "Operation Blue Skies," the world's first state-backed trial aimed at reducing climate-warming contrails across an entire oceanic airspace. For those unfamiliar with the term, "contrails" refers to the white clouds that seem to appear behind an airplane during flight -- these are formed when water vapor condenses around soot particles in jet exhaust, and account for around one-third of the aviation industry's total climate impact. Google says that this new initiative uses AI-powered forecasts to identify contrail-sensitive regions in the atmosphere, based on data gathered from previous trials. This predictive data will then allow flight crews and air traffic controllers to make minor, targeted flight path deviations to prevent the strongly warming clouds from forming, all without disrupting normal flight operations. The National Air Traffic Services (NATS) will be in charge of managing airspace operations, air traffic control coordination, and safety assessments for the trial. The trial will last for 30 months (which includes includes two four-month operational trials), and will take place in the Shanwick airspace within the eastern North Atlantic corridor. Out of the roughly 10,000 flights passing through the airspace during trial hours each year, a targeted percentage will then be rerouted to avoid contrail generation. As mentioned earlier, several other partners will play major roles for the project -- the Met Office is developing new forecasting capabilities to ensure meteorological accuracy, while Contrails.org is designing the trial parameters and handling data analysis. Meanwhile, independent verification of the project's climate impact will be conducted by Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge. The trial will be co-funded by industry partners and the UK Department for Transport, and 100% of the government grants will go directly to the academic, non-profit, and aviation partners. Google UK is participating entirely on a pro-bono basis, contributing £1.4 million in-kind through AI research expertise, engineering time, and high-performance computing infrastructure.

AI to be trialled to help stop planes from leaving contrails

Contrails are contributing to climate change, while also being the subject of some conspiracy theories. When you see a plane flying through a clear sky, chances are you've seen a pair of white lines trailing behind its flight path. Those lines are called contrails, and are icy clouds that contribute to climate change. With AI, they could soon be avoided. As per BBC News, a £5 million trial is testing whether AI can successfully predict where contrails are likely to form and tell planes to avoid those areas. It's going to be tested in the Shanwick Oceanic airspace, where 5% of global contrail warming takes place. While most contrails disappear quickly, those in cold or humid conditions can remain and spread, forming clouds that keep heat in that could otherwise escape the Earth. "We think that contrail warming is responsible for something like a third of all aviation climate warming," said Google's technical lead for the operation, Dr Paul Hodgson. If the trial is successful, it would still require aircraft to change their altitude, which could burn more fuel. However, this additional fuel use is said to be much smaller than the overall climate contributions of contrails.