Investigating Convection and Cross-Tropopause Transport Using Long-Term Observations of NMHCs in the UT/LS from the IAGOS-CARIBIC Observatory
Abstract
Since 2005 the IAGOS-CARIBIC observatory (In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System - Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container; www.caribic-atmospheric.com) has made detailed observations of atmospheric composition from onboard a Lufthansa Airlines A340-600 passenger aircraft. The observatory is deployed once per month for a series of 2-6 long-distance flights and operates at aircraft cruise altitude (10-12 km), placing the observations predominantly in the upper troposphere and lowermost stratosphere (UT/LS). The IAGOS-CARIBIC payload includes instruments to make in situ trace gas and aerosol observations, as well as a system for the collection of whole air samples for post flight analysis of greenhouse gases, halocarbons, and non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs). NMHCs are particularly useful indicators of air mass sources and transport histories, and using the relationships between different hydrocarbons in the UT/LS we have identified regions of the upper troposphere regularly influenced by strong convection as well as instances of rapid cross-tropopause transport. Here we provide an overview of our findings along with a more detailed description of our observations in far northern latitudes, where we frequently observed air with high tropospheric character in the lower stratosphere during spring.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015AGUFM.A33K0338B
- Keywords:
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- 0368 Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 3305 Climate change and variability;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3319 General circulation;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES