An object-based method for contrail detection in AVHRR satellite images

Abstract

Contrails are important in understanding how aviation potentially affects climate change. The commonly used methods for detecting contrails usually only consider the spectral information of the image. This study focuses on introducing an object-based method for detecting contrails in AVHRR images. An object-based method utilizes not only the spectral characteristics, but also spatial information to aid in the detection. The results of the experimental study demonstrate that it is practical to use an object-based classification method for contrail detection. Compared with pixel-based classification methods, the accuracy of the results is improved using the object-based method.