New Climate TRACE AI tool tracks deadly air pollution in 2,500 cities worldwide

Artificial intelligence (AI) now tracks dangerous air pollution from 660 million sources worldwide through a new tool that shows exactly where toxic particles drift into neighborhoods.

Climate TRACE launched the free interactive map on September 24. The AI system processes data from 300 satellites and 30,000 ground sensors to monitor PM2.5 pollution flowing from factories, power plants, and ports into 2,500 cities.

The technology reveals that 1.6 billion people are exposed to pollution from specific facilities. Approximately 900 million people face exposure from “super emitters” — the top 10 percent of polluters.

“Without AI, people couldn’t have imagined doing something like that,” former Vice President Al Gore told TechCrunch. Gore co-founded Climate TRACE to make pollution sources visible.

PM2.5 particles are estimated to cause between 8.7 and 9 million deaths globally each year. The microscopic pollutants enter the bloodstreams and lodge in the lungs, causing heart disease, asthma, and other deadly conditions.

“We’ve gone from greenhouse gases to the top seven pollutants of concern for health,” Gavin McCormick, Climate TRACE co-founder, told CNN. “In places like the United States, we actually had pretty good data on that already. In most countries, there’s nothing like it, and so that information is the kind of scientific breakthrough here.”

The AI identifies pollution patterns humans would miss. Machine learning algorithms analyze weather simulations to show how pollution travels on typical days and worst-case scenarios.

Karachi, Pakistan, tops the list with 18.4 million people exposed to facility pollution. New York ranks fourth globally with 16.7 million exposed residents — the only U.S. city in the top ten.

Ships produce surprising amounts of pollution. The AI flagged domestic shipping as a super emitter at ports in Boston, Los Angeles, and Long Beach.

Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab partnered with Climate TRACE to develop the visualization system. The collaboration turned massive datasets into neighborhood-level pollution maps.

The tool already analyzed Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” where residents face cancer risks 50 times the national average. Climate TRACE calculated pollution exposure along the 65-mile industrial corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Aside from PM2.5, the AI tracks seven other pollutants, including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Each chemical poses different health risks.

Climate TRACE plans neighborhood-level data expansion. Gore hopes daily pollution updates will eventually appear in weather apps alongside temperature and allergy forecasts.

McCormick hopes the tool motivates action. “[The tool] makes it more likely to build political support for the conversion of these facilities to much less emitting technologies, ” he said.

All data remains freely downloadable at Climate TRACE’s website for researchers, activists, and residents to analyze their local pollution sources.

Communities long suspected that facility pollution harmed their health. AI analysis now provides the proof they need to demand action from policymakers and companies.