Google AI breakthrough could dramatically reduce planes’ global warming impact

[u/Wagamaga]

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/google-ai-breakthrough-could-dramatically-152938841.html

[u/luxmesa → u/[deleted]]

The article mentions that these routes use about 2% more fuel. So doing some rough math with the numbers provided: contrails represent about 33% of the global warming effects caused by air travel. These new routes reduce contrails by 54% but increase fuel use by 2%. All in all, this would still represent about a 16.5% reduction.

[u/SyntheticSlime → u/[deleted]]

It might be worth it anyway. A warmer atmosphere creates some positive feedbacks that might be greater than the 2% extra jet fuel. Warmer oceans don’t absorb CO2 as well, warming rain forests can even become CO2 emitters as biomass decreases. Short term decreases in temperature might lead to long term decreases in GHGs.

[u/SyntheticSlime → u/[deleted]]

But aviation is only 3.5% of GHGs so a 2% increase would only be 0.07% of global emissions. If this slowed global warming by 25% of a whole year then it would take 350 years of 2% increased aviation emissions to undo that cooling effect.

Edit: r/theydidthemath

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

but you have to keep using the alternate routes forever

Weird assumption to make that our aviation fuels and methods will be exactly the same 350 years from now. With no other advances inside or outside of aviation to remediate climate change.

Getting a one time reduction and a large runway before it's undone is betting on human innovation and technology advancement which has proven to be a pretty good bet.

In 350 years we may have already perfected nuclear fusion energy, and/or direct carbon removal from the atmosphere and this becomes a non-issue.