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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">JECATSD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Journal of Environmentally Compatible Air Transport System Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">JECATSD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">J. Env. Com. Air Transp. Sys. Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">3053-9285</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/jecats-2026-6</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Improving reanalysis weather for contrail validation by incorporating satellite observations</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Geraedts</surname>
<given-names>Scott</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0001-6496-0153</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Sarna</surname>
<given-names>Aaron</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8786-5581</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Rohs</surname>
<given-names>Susanne</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5473-2934</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Teoh</surname>
<given-names>Roger</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>McCloskey</surname>
<given-names>Kevin</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9967-4117</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Google Research, Mountain View, CA, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Centre for Transport Studies, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, UK</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Energy and Climate Research 8 – Troposphere, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>20</day>
<month>04</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>18</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Scott Geraedts et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://jecats.copernicus.org/preprints/jecats-2026-6/">This article is available from https://jecats.copernicus.org/preprints/jecats-2026-6/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://jecats.copernicus.org/preprints/jecats-2026-6/jecats-2026-6.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://jecats.copernicus.org/preprints/jecats-2026-6/jecats-2026-6.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Aviation-induced condensation trails (contrails) contribute significantly to anthropogenic radiative forcing. While navigational contrail avoidance has been proposed as a strategy to mitigate this climate impact, the operational viability of such maneuvers relies on the ability to verify their efficacy. Current verification methodologies often employ contrail models (such as CoCiP) driven by reanalysis weather data; however, these assessments are limited by the variable fidelity of the underlying meteorological datasets. In this work, we address this uncertainty by leveraging satellite observations to refine reanalysis estimates for specific contrail events. We demonstrate that this approach significantly improves the agreement between reanalysis data and in-situ measurements obtained from the IAGOS program, thereby offering a more robust framework for evaluating avoidance strategies.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="18"/></counts>
</article-meta>
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