Contrail Formation and Mitigation in the Japanese Airspace: A Data-Driven Study

Estimating contrail formation and proposing effective mitigation strategies have posed significant challenges for the aviation industry in recent years. This study utilizes the Japanese airspace as a case study to address the challenge of assessing and minimizing the environmental impact of contrails. Initially, we introduce a novel combination of meteorological and flight trajectory data sources, followed by a comparative data quality analysis. Drawing on four months of data during different seasons from 2023, we conduct an in-depth analysis of contrail formation within the Japanese airspace, uniquely quantifying contrails with highresolution data to provide insights into their geographical and seasonal variations. Subsequently, we examine the effectiveness of altitude diversions as a mitigation strategy. Our findings identify clear geographical and seasonal influences on contrail formation in the region. We illustrate that altitude diversions can significantly reduce contrail formation with minimal altitude adjustments of up to 2000 ft. We found that minor altitude diversions can mitigate between 70% and 90% of the persistent contrail formed near the Japan region. Notably, the results also highlight a concerning phenomenon: during warmer months, such as July, a higher quantity and percentage of persistent contrails is observed, and a larger proportion of these contrails cannot be mitigated through altitude diversions. This result could intensify positive radiative forcing during warmer periods, underscoring the need for further research into contrail mitigation strategies.