Lufthansa A340-300 Analysing the Earth's Atmosphere

Lufthansa and the Jülich Research Centre (FZJ) have launched an innovative climate research project for the long-term observation of the earth's atmosphere using scheduled Lufthansa services.

The specially developed measurement devices on board the Lufthansa Airbus A340-300 “Viersen” will routinely record atmospheric trace substances, and in the future, aerosols and cloud particles as well, while the aircraft is in flight. This research will take place all over the world.

The generated data will be digitally sampled, processed and analysed after every landing. The goal is the creation of a worldwide measurement infrastructure that would allow the global observation of the earth's atmosphere by means of civil aviation. This gathered data will be of major importance for climate research and numerical weather forecasting.

A several-year development phase involving 15 European project partners under the direction of the Jülich Research Centre (FZJ) has gone into the preparation of the research project named IAGOS (In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System).

The newly-developed instrument package is extremely robust, almost maintenance-free and can be efficiently integrated into an airline's flight operations. The use of civil aviation aircraft allows for the collection of large quantities of important measurement data, in a volume and resolution that would otherwise not be possible using only research flights or satellites.

Climate research has a long tradition at Lufthansa and IAGOS is already the fourth climate project being supported by Lufthansa. For almost two decades, Lufthansa has been one of the only airlines worldwide involved in climate research and air quality.

The first flight in this new project flew from Frankfurt to Lagos, Nigeria, late last week.

See recent travel news from: Travel News Asia, Lufthansa