The first regular measurements of ozone, carbon monoxide and water vapour in the Pacific UTLS by IAGOS

• Main Authors: Hannah Clark, Bastien Sauvage, Valérie Thouret, Philippe Nédélec, Romain Blot, Kuo-Ying Wang, Herman Smit, Patrick Neis, Andreas Petzold, Gilles Athier, Damien Boulanger, Jean-Marc Cousin, Karl Beswick, Martin Gallagher, Darrel Baumgardner, Johannes Kaiser, Jean-Marie Flaud, Andreas Wahner, Andreas Volz-Thomas, Jean-Pierre Cammas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2015-08-01
• Series: Tellus: Series B, Chemical and Physical Meteorology
• Subjects: ozone; carbon monoxide; Pacific; IAGOS; UTLS
• Online Access: http://www.tellusb.net/index.php/tellusb/article/view/28385/pdf_30

We present the features seen in the first 2 months (July and August 2012) of data collected over the Pacific by IAGOS (In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System)-equipped aircraft. IAGOS is the continuation and development of the well-known MOZAIC (Measurement of Ozone and Water Vapour on Airbus in-service Aircraft) project where scientific instruments were carried on commercially operated A340 aircraft to make measurements of chemical species in the atmosphere. Here, we show data from an aircraft operated by China Airlines on routes from Taipei to Vancouver, which provided the first trans-Pacific measurements by an IAGOS-equipped aircraft. We describe the chemical composition of the extratropical upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (Ex-UTLS) across the Pacific basin in the Northern Hemisphere. The observed concentrations of ozone span a range from 18 to 500 ppbv indicating sources in the marine boundary layer and lowermost stratosphere, respectively. Concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) greater than 400 ppbv are observed in the Ex-UTLS suggesting that plumes of pollution have been exported from the continent. These low concentrations of ozone and high concentrations of CO were rarely recorded in 8 yr of MOZAIC observations over the Atlantic.