IAGOS

In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System
Project websiteData accessOfficial website

The project

IAGOS (In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System) is an European Research Infrastructure (ESFRI Roadmap 2006) conducting global longterm observations of atmospheric composition (reactives and greenhouse gases, aerosols, cloud particles) on a fleet of commercial aircraft of international operating airlines.

IAGOS is an CNRS-INSU Observation Service since 1994 and a CNRS Research Infrastructure since 2009. IAGOS is the successor of the former program MOZAIC (Measurements of OZone, water vapour, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides by in-service AIrbus airCraft) and includes observations of the project CARIBIC (Global Atmospheric Composition and Climate Change Research).

The IAGOS fleet in composed of more than 8 aircraft from the airlines Lufthansa, Air France, China Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Iberia and Hawaiian Airlines.

Observations

MOZAIC observations (August 1994 – November 2014) are airborne in-situ measurements for ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), water vapor (H2O) and total nitrogen oxides (NOy). IAGOS observations (July 2011 – today) include ozone, water vapor, carbon monoxide, and cloud droplets (number and size). Depending of the optional instrumentation, additional measurements are either, nitrogen oxides (NOx), total nitrogen oxides (NOy), greenhouse gases (CO2 and CH4) or aerosols.

Measurements are geo located (latitude, longitude and pressure) and come with meteorological observations (wind direction and force, temperature, etc.). Data acquisition is automatically performed during the flights.

Ancillary data are provided for a better understanding of the IAGOS data.

Database

IAGOS data policy is free access for scientific use (WMO resolution 40 for policy and practice for the exchange of meteorological and related data and products). Users have to sign the IAGOS data protocol and to fill online a form for getting access.

The datasets are all available in NetCDF and NASA Ames formats:

  • Time series: the time resolution is 4 seconds, which corresponds to an horizontal resolution of about 1 km and a vertical resolution of about 20 m. The files include ascent, descent and cruise phases.
  • Vertical profiles: only during ascent or descent phases data.
  • Climatology of some species for one or more decades
  • Ancillary data: they are mainly derived from ECMWF analyses and contain for instance the height of the tropopause and on history of air masses sampled along the aircraft trajectory. The Lagrangian dispersion model Flexpart Version 9.0 by Stohl et al. (Atmos. Chem. Phys., 5, 2461-2474, 2005) is used for the production of those products.

Contacts

Valérie Thouret (Laboratoire d’Aérologie)

thov@aero.obs-mip.fr Coordinator IAGOS-France

Andreas Petzold (Forschungszentrum Jülich)

a.petzold@fz-juelich.de Coordinator IAGOS-Germany

tag Tags

Highlights :european project
Typologie de projet :Airborne data

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