AI in the Sky: Google’s Bold Move to Tackle the Hidden Climate Cost of Flying

Image Credit: American Airlines

Google Cloud is being leveraged to address some of the world’s most complex sustainability challenges. Among them is an unlikely but surprisingly significant contributor to global warming, airplane contrails. The technology is also being used to help businesses track and manage their environmental impact.

According to the Royal Meteorological Society, the thin, streaky clouds that trail behind aircraft may be responsible for more warming than the carbon emissions from the flights themselves. These persistent contrail clouds trap heat in the atmosphere, disrupting the natural balance between incoming solar radiation and the heat radiating back from the Earth’s surface.

Max Vogler, Software Engineer at Google, says: “Our predictions are accurate enough to significantly reduce climate impacts.

Max Vogler, Software Engineer at Google

“In our study with American Airlines, pilots were able to avoid more than half of the contrails by using our flight paths. 

“This has also been confirmed by independent researchers.”

What Are Contrail Clouds?

Contrail clouds form when a mix of water vapour, cold air, and tiny particles meets in just the right conditions. Jet engines burn fuel that contains hydrogen, which reacts with oxygen in the air to produce water vapour. When temperatures drop below- 40 degrees Celsius, this vapour condenses and attaches to soot particles released from the engine exhaust. The resulting water droplets quickly freeze, creating a visible streak of ice crystals in the sky.

Sometimes these clouds vanish in moments. Other times, they stretch for hundreds or even thousands of metres and linger for hours, affecting the climate far beyond their fleeting appearance.

Google’s Approach to Reducing Contrails

In partnership with American Airlines, Google has been trialling an AI-driven system that can sift through enormous amounts of weather, satellite, and flight data to predict when and where contrails are most likely to form. Pilots and flight dispatchers can then use these insights to adjust flight altitudes to conditions less likely to create them.

The results from a six-month trial were promising. Sixty-four per cent of contrails were successfully avoided, and their average length was cut by more than half. The trade-off was a slight increase in fuel use — about 2 per cent more for the flights that made diversions, translating to only 0.3 per cent more fuel use across the airline’s entire fleet.

Max says, “Google's Sustainable Travel team is based in Zurich. Here, we combine the innovative company culture with the European focus on sustainability. 

“Our team works to make climate research accessible to airlines and flight planning software. 

“We help our industry partners integrate the forecasts into their systems. We also train flight planning employees to effectively adjust flight routes.”

Adam Elman, Sustainability Director at Google, said on LinkedIn: “Climate action needs action, and one of the best parts of my job is working with people who’ve chosen to use their unique skills and passion to drive sustainability forward.

Adam Elman, Sustainability Director at Google

“I recently joined a panel with two such changemakers: Max Vogler, a Google Software engineer based in Zurich and Martina Löfqvist from geospatial AI start-up and Google Cloud, Picterra. 

“We spoke about how AI is already helping people, companies and governments to make an immediate impact in the fight against climate change.”

Google Cloud’s sustainability efforts extend beyond aviation. The platform is also hosting tools like Picterra, which provides scalable geospatial monitoring. These capabilities are becoming vital for companies facing increasing pressure to measure and manage their environmental footprint.

With Picterra, organisations can access trusted, verifiable data to track sustainability performance, assess operational and reputational risks, and improve governance. As global expectations for corporate responsibility continue to rise, such tools provide a means for businesses to substantiate their climate commitments with tangible action.

Pierrick Poulenas, CEO at Picterra, says "We aim to make geospatial intelligence scalable and accessible, helping organizations globally to understand and act on data-informed insights.

Pierrick Poulenas, CEO, Picterra

“With Picterra available on Google Cloud Marketplace, organisations can now use their cloud spend on our solutions, simplifying procurement and ease of access. 

“By leveraging geospatial intelligence, businesses gain a reliable solution that strengthens compliance, reduces costs and rebuilds trust in sustainability initiatives."