<
https://apnews.com/article/google-contrails-climate-warming-aviation-2110e4cb5c317c3434805076764c5a47>
"Hundreds of commercial flights will be told to change their paths over the
northeastern Atlantic Ocean during the next two winters to show how minor
altitude adjustments can reduce aviation’s climate impact.
The British government is backing the landmark airspace-scale trial, launched
Tuesday, to avoid creating condensation trails, or contrails. Google UK is
contributing its artificial intelligence-powered forecasts to identify the
contrail regions.
When airplanes fly through cold and humid areas, ice crystals can form around
the soot particles emitted from the engine, creating clouds that trap heat and
warm the planet. The Shanwick Oceanic Control Area in the eastern half of the
North Atlantic corridor, the location of the trial, is a busy gateway for air
traffic between Europe and North America. It’s also a hot spot for where
contrails form.
The 30-month research program known as Operation Blue Skies includes test
periods this winter and next, when air traffic controllers will tell some
flights to deviate up to 2,000 feet (610 meters) to avoid areas where contrails
are likely to form. These will be minor altitude adjustments within standard
flight operations, coordinated through established air traffic control
communication channels, according to the British government.
There will be about 20 to 40 test days per winter, when there is less air
traffic. Around 10,000 flights are expected to pass through the Shanwick
airspace during the testing. Hundreds of those flights would deviate their
routes. That 1 % to 5% would be enough to demonstrate a statistically
significant reduction in contrail formation on an airspace-scale, said Paul
Hodgson, Google’s technical lead for Operation Blue Skies."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
