Contrail-to-Flight Attribution Using Ground Visible Cameras and Flight Surveillance Data

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Dalmau, Ramon, Jarry, Gabriel, Very, Philippe
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Dalmau, Ramon
Jarry, Gabriel
Very, Philippe
author_facet Dalmau, Ramon
Jarry, Gabriel
Very, Philippe
contents Aviation's non-CO2 effects, particularly contrails, are a significant contributor to its climate impact. Persistent contrails can evolve into cirrus-like clouds that trap outgoing infrared radiation, with radiative forcing potentially comparable to or exceeding that of aviation's CO2 emissions. While physical models simulate contrail formation, evolution and dissipation, validating and calibrating these models requires linking observed contrails to the flights that generated them, a process known as contrail-to-flight attribution. Satellite-based attribution is challenging due to limited spatial and temporal resolution, as contrails often drift and deform before detection. In this paper, we evaluate an alternative approach using ground-based cameras, which capture contrails shortly after formation at high spatial and temporal resolution, when they remain thin, linear, and visually distinct. Leveraging the ground visible camera contrail sequences (GVCCS) dataset, we introduce a modular framework for attributing contrails observed using ground-based cameras to theoretical contrails derived from aircraft surveillance and meteorological data. The framework accommodates multiple geometric representations and distance metrics, incorporates temporal smoothing, and enables flexible probability-based assignment strategies. This work establishes a strong baseline and provides a modular framework for future research in linking contrails to their source flight.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_16891
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Contrail-to-Flight Attribution Using Ground Visible Cameras and Flight Surveillance Data
Dalmau, Ramon
Jarry, Gabriel
Very, Philippe
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Aviation's non-CO2 effects, particularly contrails, are a significant contributor to its climate impact. Persistent contrails can evolve into cirrus-like clouds that trap outgoing infrared radiation, with radiative forcing potentially comparable to or exceeding that of aviation's CO2 emissions. While physical models simulate contrail formation, evolution and dissipation, validating and calibrating these models requires linking observed contrails to the flights that generated them, a process known as contrail-to-flight attribution. Satellite-based attribution is challenging due to limited spatial and temporal resolution, as contrails often drift and deform before detection. In this paper, we evaluate an alternative approach using ground-based cameras, which capture contrails shortly after formation at high spatial and temporal resolution, when they remain thin, linear, and visually distinct. Leveraging the ground visible camera contrail sequences (GVCCS) dataset, we introduce a modular framework for attributing contrails observed using ground-based cameras to theoretical contrails derived from aircraft surveillance and meteorological data. The framework accommodates multiple geometric representations and distance metrics, incorporates temporal smoothing, and enables flexible probability-based assignment strategies. This work establishes a strong baseline and provides a modular framework for future research in linking contrails to their source flight.
title Contrail-to-Flight Attribution Using Ground Visible Cameras and Flight Surveillance Data
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16891