Andreas Volz-Thomas

This article presents the In-service Aircraft of a Global Observing System (IAGOS) developed for operations on commercial long-range Airbus aircraft (A330/A340) for monitoring the atmospheric composition. IAGOS is the continuation of the former Measurement of OZone and water vapour on Airbus In-service airCraft (MOZAIC) programme (1994–2014) with five aircraft operated by European airlines over 20 yr. MOZAIC has provided unique scientific database used worldwide by the scientific community. In continuation of MOZAIC, IAGOS aims to equip a fleet up to 20 aircraft around the world and for operations over decades. IAGOS started in July 2011 with the first instruments installed aboard a Lufthansa A340-300, and a total of six aircraft are already in operation. We present the technical aircraft system concept, with basic instruments for O3, CO, water vapour and clouds; and optional instruments for measuring either NOy, NOx, aerosols or CO2/CH4. In this article, we focus on the O3 and CO instrumentation while ot...

A compact (500 cm³), lightweight (500 g), near-field, single particle backscattering optical spectrometer is described that mounts flush with the skin of an aircraft and measures the concentration and optical equivalent diameter of particles from 5 to 75 μm. The backscatter cloud probe (BCP) was designed as a real-time qualitative cloud detector primarily for data quality control of trace gas instruments developed for the climate monitoring instrument packages that are being installed on commercial passenger aircraft as part of the European Union In-Service Aircraft for a Global Observing System (IAGOS) program (http://www.iagos.org/). Subsequent evaluations of the BCP measurements on a number of research aircraft, however, have revealed it capable of delivering quantitative particle data products including size distributions, liquid-water content and other information on cloud properties. We demonstrate the instrument's capability for delivering useful long-term climatological, as well as aviation performance information, across a wide range of environmental conditions. The BCP has been evaluated by comparing its measurements with those from other cloud particle spectrometers on research aircraft and several BCPs are currently flying on commercial A340/A330 Airbus passenger airliners. The design and calibration of the BCP is described in this article, along with an evaluation of measurements made on the research and commercial aircraft. Preliminary results from more than 7000 h of airborne measurements by the BCP on two Airbus A340s operating on routine global traffic routes (one Lufthansa, the other China Airlines) show that more than 340 h of cloud data have been recorded at normal cruise altitudes (> 10 km) and more than 40% of the > 1200 flights were through clouds at some point between takeoff and landing. These data are a valuable contribution to databases of cloud properties, including sub-visible cirrus, in the upper troposphere and useful for validating satellite retrievals of cloud water and effective radius; in addition, providing a broader, geographically and climatologically relevant view of cloud microphysical variability that is useful for improving parameterizations of clouds in climate models. Moreover, they are also useful for monitoring the vertical climatology of clouds over airports, especially those over megacities where pollution emissions may be impacting local and regional climate.

Two recent papers have quantified long‐term ozone (O₃) changes observed at northern midlatitude sites that are believed to represent baseline (here understood as representative of continental to hemispheric scales) conditions. Three chemistry‐climate models (NCAR CAM‐chem, GFDL‐CM3, and GISS‐E2‐R) have calculated retrospective tropospheric O₃ concentrations as part of the Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Model Intercomparison Project and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 model intercomparisons. We present an approach for quantitative comparisons of model results with measurements for seasonally averaged O₃ concentrations. There is considerable qualitative agreement between the measurements and the models, but there are also substantial and consistent quantitative disagreements. Most notably, models (1) overestimate absolute O₃ mixing ratios, on average by ~5 to 17 ppbv in the year 2000, (2) capture only ~50% of O₃ changes observed over the past five to six decades, and little of observed seasonal differences, and (3) capture ~25 to 45% of the rate of change of the long‐term changes. These disagreements are significant enough to indicate that only limited confidence can be placed on estimates of present‐day radiative forcing of tropospheric O₃ derived from modeled historic concentration changes and on predicted future O₃ concentrations. Evidently our understanding of tropospheric O₃, or the incorporation of chemistry and transport processes into current chemical climate models, is incomplete. Modeled O₃ trends approximately parallel estimated trends in anthropogenic emissions of NO_x, an important O₃ precursor, while measured O₃ changes increase more rapidly than these emission estimates.

This paper describes the NOy plumes originating from lightning emissions based on 4 yr (2001–2005) of MOZAIC measurements in the upper troposphere of the northern mid-latitudes, together with ground- and space-based observations of lightning flashes and clouds. This analysis is primarily for the North Atlantic region where the MOZAIC flights are the most frequent and for which the measurements are well representative in space and time. The study investigates the influence of lightning NOx (LNOx) emissions on large-scale (300–2000 km) plumes (LSPs) of NOy. One hundred and twenty seven LSPs (6% of the total MOZAIC NOy dataset) have been attributed to LNOx emissions. Most of these LSPs were recorded over North America and the Atlantic mainly in spring and summer during the maximum lightning activity occurrence. The majority of the LSPs (74%) is related to warm conveyor belts and extra-tropical cyclones originating from North America and entering the intercontinental transport pathway between North America and Europe, leading to a negative (positive) west to east NOy (O3) zonal gradient with −0.4 (+18) ppbv difference during spring and −0.6 (+14) ppbv difference in summer. The NOy zonal gradient can correspond to the mixing of the plume with the background air. On the other hand, the O3 gradient is associated with both mixing of background air and with photochemical production during transport. Such transatlantic LSPs may have a potential impact on the European pollution. The remaining sampled LSPs are related to mesoscale convection over Western Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (18%) and to tropical convection (8%)

In order to evaluate the observed high rural ozone levels in the eastern Mediterranean area during summertime, vertical profiles of ozone measured in the period 1994–2008 in the framework of the MOZAIC project (Measurement of Ozone and Water Vapor by Airbus in Service Aircraft) over the eastern Mediterranean basin (Cairo, Tel Aviv, Heraklion, Rhodes, Antalya) were analyzed, focusing in the lower troposphere (1.5–5 km). At first, vertical profiles collected during extreme days with very high or very low tropospheric ozone mixing ratios have been examined together with the corresponding back-trajectories. Also, the average profiles of ozone, relative humidity, carbon monoxide, temperature gradient and wind speed corresponding to the 7% highest and the 7% lowest ozone mixing ratios for the 1500–5000 m height layer for Cairo and Tel Aviv have been examined and the corresponding composite maps of geopotential heights at 850 hPa have been plotted. Based on the above analysis, it turns out that the lower-tropospheric ozone variability over the eastern Mediterranean area is controlled mainly by the synoptic meteorological conditions, combined with local topographical and meteorological features. In particular, the highest ozone concentrations in the lower troposphere and subsequently in the boundary layer are associated with large-scale subsidence of ozone-rich air masses from the upper troposphere under anticyclonic conditions while the lowest ozone concentrations are associated with low pressure conditions inducing uplifting of boundary-layer air, poor in ozone and rich in relative humidity, to the lower troposphere.

Cloud chemistry simulations were performed for a Hector thunderstorm observed on 16 November 2005 during the SCOUT-O3/ACTIVE campaigns based in Darwin, Australia, with the primary objective of estimating the average NO production per lightning flash in this unique storm type which occurred in a tropical island environment. The 3-D WRF-Aqueous Chemistry (WRF-AqChem) model is used for these calculations and contains the WRF nonhydrostatic cloud-resolving model with online gas- and aqueous-phase chemistry and a lightning-NO_x (LNO_x) production algorithm. The model was initialized by inducing convection with an idealized morning sounding and sensible heat source, and initial condition chemical profiles from merged aircraft observations in undisturbed air. Many features of the idealized model storm, such as storm size and peak radar reflectivity, were similar to the observed storm. Tracer species, such as CO, used to evaluate convective transport in the simulated storm found vertical motion from the boundary layer to the anvil region was well represented in the model, with a small overestimate of enhanced CO at anvil altitudes. The lightning detection network (LINET) provided lightning flash data for the model and a lightning placement scheme injected the resulting NO into the simulated cloud. A lightning NO production scenario of 500 moles flash⁻¹ for both CG and IC flashes yielded anvil NO_x mixing ratios that compared well with aircraft observations and were also similar to those deduced for several convective modeling analyses in the midlatitudes and subtropics. However, these NO production values were larger than most estimates for tropical thunderstorms and given several uncertainties, LNO_x production may have been as large as 600 moles flash⁻¹. Approximately 85% of the simulated LNO_x mass was located above 7 km in the later stages of the storm, which was greater than amounts found for subtropical and midlatitude convection. Modeled upper tropospheric NO₂ partial columns were also considerably greater than most satellite observations of tropical marine convective events, as tropical island convection, such as Hector, is more vigorous and more productive of LNO_x. Additional research is needed to investigate whether LNO_x production per flash increases in storms with greater wind shear, such as this Hector storm, which showed significant variation in wind direction with altitude.

At northern midlatitudes the abundance of tropospheric O₃ has increased by a factor of approximately 2 since the 1950s. The cause of this increase is generally attributed to increasing anthropogenic precursor emissions, but present chemical and transport models cannot quantitatively reproduce its magnitude. Here we show another manifestation of changes in O₃ abundance—a shift of the seasonal cycle at northern midlatitudes so that the observed peak concentrations now appear earlier in the year than in previous decades. The rate of this shift has been 3 to 6 days per decade since the 1970s. We examine possible reasons to explain this shift and suggest it is due to changes in atmospheric transport patterns combined with spatial and temporal changes in emissions. Detailed modeling is necessary to test these hypotheses; this investigation will provide useful guidance for improving global chemistry‐climate models and stringent tests of the model results.

Changes in baseline (here understood as representative of continental to hemispheric scales) tropospheric O₃ concentrations that have occurred at northern mid-latitudes over the past six decades are quantified from available measurement records with the goal of providing benchmarks to which retrospective model calculations of the global O₃ distribution can be compared. Eleven data sets (ten ground-based and one airborne) including six European (beginning in the 1950's and before), three North American (beginning in 1984) and two Asian (beginning in 1991) are analyzed. When the full time periods of the data records are considered a consistent picture emerges; O₃ has increased at all sites in all seasons at approximately 1% yr⁻¹ relative to the site's 2000 yr mixing ratio in each season. For perspective, this rate of increase sustained from 1950 to 2000 corresponds to an approximate doubling. There is little if any evidence for statistically significant differences in average rates of increase among the sites, regardless of varying length of data records. At most sites (most definitively at the European sites) the rate of increase has slowed over the last decade (possibly longer), to the extent that at present O₃ is decreasing at some sites in some seasons, particularly in summer. The average rate of increase before 2000 shows significant seasonal differences (1.08 ± 0.09, 0.89 ± 0.10, 0.85 ± 0.11 and 1.21 ± 0.12% yr⁻¹ in spring, summer, autumn and winter, respectively, over North America and Europe).

We present a case study of Aitken and accumulation mode aerosol observed downwind of the anvil of a deep tropical thunderstorm. The measurements were made by condensation nuclei counters flown on the Egrett high-altitude aircraft from Darwin during the ACTIVE campaign, in monsoon conditions producing widespread convection over land and ocean. Maximum measured concentrations of aerosol with diameter greater than 10 nm were 25 000 cm⁻³ (STP). By calculating back-trajectories from the observations, and projecting onto infrared satellite images, the time since the air exited cloud was estimated. In this way a time scale of about 3 hours was derived for the Aitken aerosol concentration to reach its peak. We examine the hypothesis that the growth in aerosol concentrations can be explained by production of sulphuric acid from SO₂ followed by particle nucleation and coagulation. Estimates of the sulphuric acid production rate show that the observations are only consistent with this hypothesis if the particles coagulate to sizes >10 nm much more quickly than is suggested by current theory. Alternatively, other condensible gases (possibly organic) drive the growth of aerosol particles in the TTL.