Climatology of NOy in the troposphere and UT/LS from measurements made in MOZAIC

• Published in: Tellus. Series B, Chemical and physical meteorology Chemical and physical meteorology, 2015-01, Vol.67 (1), p.28793-16
• Main Authors: Thomas, Karin, Berg, Marcel, Boulanger, Damien, Houben, Norbert, Gressent, Alicia, Nédélec, Philippe, Pätz, Hans-Werner, Thouret, Valerie, Volz-Thomas, Andreas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: commercial aircraft; MOZAIC; nitrogen oxides; ozone; total odd nitrogen
• ISSN: 0280-6509; 1600-0889
• DOI: 10.3402/tellusb.v67.28793

In December 2000, a fully automatic NO y instrument was installed on one of the five Airbus A340 aircraft used in the MOZAIC project (Measurement of Ozone and Water Vapour by Airbus in-service Aircraft) for measurements of O 3 and H 2 O since 1994. This long-range aircraft was operated by Lufthansa, mainly out of Frankfurt and Munich. After an initial testing period, regular data collection started in May 2001. Until May 2005, 1533 flights have been recorded, corresponding to 8500 flight hours of NO y measurements. Concurrent data of NO y and O 3 are available from 1433 flights and concurrent data for CO, O 3 and NO y exist from 1125 flights since 2002. The paper describes the data availability in terms of geographical, vertical and seasonal distribution and discusses the quality and limitations of the data, including interference by HCN. The vast majority of vertical profiles were measured over Frankfurt, followed by Munich and North American airports. While most of the data were collected in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere over the North Atlantic, significant data sets exist also from flights to Far and Middle East, whereas data from the tropics and the Southern Hemisphere are relatively sparse.