F4ECLIM at the 5th ECATS Conference

The F4ECLIM project was represented at the 5th ECATS Conference (Brussels, January 2026) with one oral presentation and two poster contributions, showcasing recent advances in climate-aware flight planning and modeling of non-CO₂ effects.

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Poster 1

Dietmüller, S., Matthes, S., Peter, P., Kirschler, S., & Piontek, D., Contrail climate response over the North Atlantic Flight Corridor: An intercomparison of the numerical tools contrail aCCF-v1.0 and grid-based CoCiP. The 5th ECATS conference, Brussels, Belgium.

This poster investigates the climate impact of aviation-induced night-time contrails over the North Atlantic Flight Corridor during winter 2018/19, using high-resolution ERA5 HRES meteorological data. Two widely used modeling approaches are compared:

• Algorithmic Climate Change Functions (aCCF-v1.0)

• Grid-based Contrail Cirrus Prediction model (CoCiP)

Both approaches consistently identify regions with a high potential for persistent contrail formation. However, they differ markedly in their estimated magnitude and spatial variability of the climate response. While aCCF-v1.0 produces smoother and more moderate patterns, CoCiP reveals strong spatial heterogeneity, with a small fraction of contrail regions contributing disproportionately to the overall climate impact. The results highlight key structural differences between contrail modeling approaches and their implications for climate-informed flight planning.

Contrail climate response over the North Atlantic Flight Corridor.pdf

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Poster 2

Grubbe Hildebrandt, K., Castino, F., Matthes, S., & Yin, F. Predicting the NOₓ-induced ozone effect of aviation emissions: Development of algorithmic climate change functions v2.0 for NOₓ-O₃, The 5th ECATS conference, Brussels, Belgium.

This contribution presents the development of NOₓ-O₃ algorithmic Climate Change Functions (aCCFs) v2.0, currently underway within the F4ECLIM project. The new version significantly extends the geographical and seasonal coverage of existing aCCFs through a dedicated set of global climate-chemistry model simulations.

From these simulations, updated Climate Change Functions (CCFs) are derived and transformed into aCCFs using a probabilistic framework, enabling the explicit representation of uncertainty in the NOₓ-induced ozone response. The resulting aCCF v2.0 provides a more robust and globally applicable basis for assessing aviation’s non-CO₂ climate effects and supports their integration into operational decision-making.

Predicting the NOₓ-induced ozone effect of aviation emissions Development of algorithmic c.

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Oral Presentation

Simorgh, A., Bola, O. M., Garcia-Heras, J., Soler, M., Grubbe Hildebrandt, K., Castino, F., Yin, F., Meuser, M. M., Zengerling, Z. L., Lau, A., Dietmüller, S., & Matthes, S. Robust climate-optimal flight planning using probabilistic algorithmic climate change functions for ozone. The 5th ECATS conference, Brussels, Belgium.

This presentation addressed robust climate-optimal flight planning under climate-impact modeling uncertainty, with a specific focus on NOₓ-induced ozone effects. The study employs the probabilistic algorithmic Climate Change Function (paCCF) for ozone, an extension of the standard aCCF framework that explicitly accounts for uncertainty in the modeled climate response. An enhanced version of the ozone paCCF, currently under development within F4ECLIM, is integrated into the ROC (Robust Optimal Control) flight planning tool, enabling uncertainty-aware trajectory optimization. The approach is demonstrated through case studies that illustrate how probabilistic climate-sensitivity information can be incorporated into flight planning to plan climate-friendly routes with reduced sensitivity to uncertainty.