A global network of cameras built to track meteors is taking on a new mission, helping scientists better understand how aircraft contrails influence Earth's climate.
Western University researchers are contributing this unique capability to E-CONTRAIL 2, a major international research project led by Manuel Soler at UC3M (Charles III University of Madrid), funded through the European Union's Horizon Europe program. The project, receiving €999 982,50 ($1,606,901 CAD) brings together scientists from around the world to improve understanding of aircraft condensation trails, or contrails, and develop better tools to predict their climate effects.
Leading Western's contribution are research scientist Denis Vida and PhD candidate Emily Tracey, who will provide contrail observations collected through the Global Meteor Network - a worldwide network of more than 1,400 ground-based cameras originally created by Vida to detect meteors.
The network is being dual-purposed for E-CONTRAIL 2 to investigate aircraft contrails, allowing researchers to collect observations of these atmospheric features from locations around the world.
Denis Vida (Western Science)
"Being part of E-CONTRAIL 2 recognizes the value of the Global Meteor Network as a scientific tool beyond its original purpose," said Vida, a physics and astronomy professor and leading expert in meteor physics. "This funding allows us to contribute a unique global dataset that will help researchers better understand contrail formation, improve climate models and ultimately support strategies to reduce aviation's climate impact."
The work comes at a critical moment for climate science. In 2024, global average temperatures surpassed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in a calendar year, highlighting the need to better understand the many factors influencing Earth's changing climate.
While aviation accounts for roughly two to three per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, its climate impact extends beyond CO₂. Contrails and aviation-induced cloudiness can influence how much heat is trapped in the atmosphere, but scientists still face major uncertainties because of limited observations, regional variability and challenges in modelling their behaviour.
"Once again, we are delivering Canadian leadership in a rapidly emerging field," said Vida. "Canada's yearly emissions roughly match the impact of contrails on climate change - a non-negligible amount."
Significant scientific challenge
Contrails form when water vapour from aircraft engines condenses on soot particles and then freezes into ice crystals in cold, high-altitude conditions.
Some disappear quickly, while others persist and spread, forming cloud-like structures that can affect Earth's energy balance.
Understanding when and where persistent contrails form - and how much they influence climate - remains a significant scientific challenge. E-CONTRAIL 2 aims to address that challenge by combining observations from multiple sources, including satellites, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), radar and ground-based cameras.
Western's contribution will provide researchers with another critical layer of observations. Data collected through the Global Meteor Network will complement satellite imagery and other atmospheric measurements to create a multi-sensor dataset that can serve as ground truth to validate and improve contrail prediction models.
Vida and his team, which includes Tracey and four more Western students, use physics-informed artificial intelligence models that incorporate atmospheric conditions, aircraft activity and other environmental factors to improve contrail detection, tracking and climate impact estimates.
Better prediction models will support the development of contrail mitigation strategies that could reduce aviation's climate impact while helping scientists better understand the role these atmospheric features play in climate change.
Emily Tracey (Chris Kindratsky)
"For a project that started by looking for meteors, it's exciting to see the Global Meteor Network being used to study something happening much closer to Earth," said Tracey. "By repurposing this network to observe contrails, we can provide researchers with another way to understand what is happening in our atmosphere and help improve predictions that could lead to more climate-friendly aviation."
The contrails study builds on Vida's work developing the Global Meteor Network as an open, worldwide scientific collaboration. Its distributed network of cameras allows researchers to monitor the atmosphere continuously and collect observations from locations that would be difficult to cover using traditional instruments alone.
For E-CONTRAIL 2, which also includes international collaborators EUROCONTROL, TU Delft (Netherlands), Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium and Reuniwatt, these observations will become part of a broader international effort to reduce uncertainty around contrail climate effects and improve the science needed to guide future aviation decisions.
"As aviation continues to grow, understanding the full range of its climate impacts is becoming increasingly important," said Vida. "Through Horizon Europe, Western and our international collaborators will bring a new perspective to that challenge - using technology designed to study the universe to better understand changes taking place here on Earth."
