CARIBIC-AMS

Starting in 2013, we developed a fully automated aerosol mass spectrometer for the IAGOS-CARIBIC container. The CARIBIC project (Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container) which is part of IAGOS operates a set of instruments in a freight container that is flown four times a month onboard a commercial Lufthansa Airbus A340-600. IAGOS-CARIBIC is coordinated by A. Zahn (KIT). The instrument "CARIBIC-AMS" is based on the commercially available miniAMS by Aerodyne Research, Inc., but required several major updates and reconfiguration until it met the needs of the stand-alone, automated operation in the IAGOS-CARIBIC container. After a revision of the IAGOS-CARIBIC container in 2017, the CARIBIC-AMS started regular operation with its first successful flights 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.

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Publications:

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, 2025.