Contrails.org, a project at Breakthrough Energy, and its team of climate leaders and researchers, will use Aireon’s global automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) to bring new insights to aviation’s impact on the environment through contrails research.
Condensation trails (contrails) are created when soot and water vapor are emitted from an aircraft’s jet engines in a cold and humid atmosphere. For roughly 5% of flights, contrails act as a potent greenhouse gas, trapping heat in the atmosphere, and are likely responsible for 1-2% of all human-caused global warming. Managing these contrails is an important pathway for aviation to significantly reduce its climate impact in the next decade.
Contrails.org will use Aireon’s AireonINSIGHTS data to investigate the impact of different flight trajectories on contrail creation, and study performance of airlines who are trialing different flight trajectories and monitoring surrounding areas to minimize contrail formation.
“Aireon is committed to supporting efforts industry-wide to reduce aviation’s impact on the environment. Our customers use our data to more efficiently route and more closely separate aircraft, which cuts down on greenhouse gas emissions. Contrails.org is taking our data a step further to examine new and innovative ways to reduce contrails,” said Jennifer Andersson, director of commercial data sales at Aireon. “We look forward to seeing what further insights Aireon data can unlock for environmental research.”
