Cutting the aviation sector’s global warming impact in half could be “incredibly cheap,” a data scientist argued.
Air travel releases CO₂, and also produces contrails — the white clouds aircraft leave in their wake. The trails trap heat, causing a short but intense warming effect roughly equivalent to the smaller but longer-term impact of the emissions. But contrails’ effects are easy to avoid, Hannah Ritchie of Our World in Data argued.
Just 3% of flights create 80% of the impact, and contrails only form in certain areas of the atmosphere. Indeed, American Airlines and Google said that they were able to cut contrails by 54% in a recent trial thanks to AI-driven analysis combining satellite imaging, weather-prediction data, and flight schedules.