IAGOS-CARIBIC

This instrumented container is installed about 6-10 times per year in the Lufthansa airbus A340-600 and conducts 4 consecutive flights before returning to KIT. The CARIBIC-AMS is indicated by the red box. Picture: F. Obersteiner, KIT.

This instrumented container is installed about 6-10 times per year in the Lufthansa airbus A340-600 and conducts 4 consecutive flights before returning to KIT. The CARIBIC-AMS is indicated by the red box. Picture: F. Obersteiner, KIT.

Together with TROPOS we operate a fully automated aerosol mass spectrometer in the IAGOS-CARIBIC container during routine passenger flights that are used to measure atmospheric composition. CARIBIC is the acronym for Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrumented Container. It is an infrastructure that is part of IAGOS (In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System). For more information on the IAGOS-CARIBIC project please visit the the CARIBIC web site.

For 6 -10 flight sequences per year, the instrumented container is installed at Munich airport into a Lufthansa airbus A340-600. A flight sequence typically consists of four consecutive flights, e.g. Munich - Los Angeles, Los Angeles - Munich, Munich - Shanghai, Shanghai - Munich. All instruments have to work fully automated because no operator is on board and no remote control is possible. After several years of development and testing, the CARIBIC-AMS started routine operation in October 2018.

Unfortunately, Lufthansa stopped operation of the A340-600 in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 situation. Thus, the planned changeover to the new Airbus A350 had to begin earlier than planned and is currently ongoing. The resumption of regular scientific flights is currently scheduled for the end of 2025.

In June 2024, the CARIBIC-AMS was successfully operated on a Learjet during the TPEx campaign.

Project partners:
TROPOS (M. Hermann)
KIT (A. Zahn, H. Bönisch, F. Obersteiner, T. Gehrlein)
+ the whole CARIBIC team

Instrument:
CARIBIC-AMS

People involved:
J. Schneider, S. Molleker, C. Schulz, A. Ludwig, F. Rubach

Results:

Schneider, J., Schulz, C., Rubach, F., Ludwig, A., Wilsch, J., Joppe, P., Gurk, C., Molleker, S., Poulain, L., Obersteiner, F., Gehrlein, T., Bönisch, H., Zahn, A., Hoor, P., Emig, N., Bozem, H., Borrmann, S., and Hermann, M.: CARIBIC-AMS: A fully automated aerosol mass spectrometer for operation on routine passenger flights (IAGOS-CARIBIC): Instrument description and first flight application in the UTLS, EGUsphere, [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3969, accepted for Atmos.Meas.Tech., 2025.