Instrumentation on commercial aircraft for monitoring the atmospheric composition on a global scale: the IAGOS system, technical overview of ozone and carbon monoxide measurements

Abstract

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 other measurements are or will be described in specific papers. O3 and CO are measured by optimised but well-known methods such as UV absorption and IR correlation, respectively. We describe the data processing/validation and the data quality control for O3 and CO. Using the first two overlapping years of MOZAIC/IAGOS, we conclude that IAGOS can be considered as the continuation of MOZAIC with the same data quality of O3 and CO measurements.

Keywords

• IAGOS
• commercial aircraft
• ozone
• carbon monoxide
• instrumentation