Japan Airlines 747 'Greenhouse Gas' effect sampling flights pass 200 mark

A JAL Boeing 747 airliner specially equipped to take air samples for a research project into the presence of "Greenhouse Gases" in the upper atmosphere, on August 10 made the 203rd sampling flight between Australia and Japan since the first flight in the project was made in April 1993.

In 1991 Japan Airlines started work on a joint project in cooperation with the JAL Foundation and the Meteorological Agency of Japan, with the support of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation, to regularly monitor changes in the proportions of various gases in the upper atmosphere in order to measure and observe the effects of global warming. Sample taking flights started two years later.

JAL equipped two 747 aircraft for the project. Specially devised automatic air samplers designed, built and installed by JAL engineers are used to collect the air samples and together the aircraft have been making two series of samples a month on scheduled passenger flights between Australia and Japan.

Samples are taken at 12 points separated by 5 degrees latitude on northbound flights between Australia and Japan at altitudes of between 9,000 meters and 13,000 meters. Initially the sample flights were between Sydney and Narita but since April this year the flights have been on the Brisbane-Tokyo route.

This JAL project is one of the longest continuous air sampling programmes in the world to be supported by a scheduled international airline. The analysis of the close to 10-year project will contribute to the better understanding of the global warming mechanism, by determining the concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide in the upper troposphere by high altitude sampling.

Analysis by the Meteorological Research Institute of Japan has revealed: (1) carbon dioxide generated mainly at the ground surface is carried into the upper troposphere; (2) carbon dioxide generated mainly in the middle to high latitude Northern Hemisphere is carried into the Southern hemisphere and (3) carbon monoxide reacts with other substances in the atmosphere and affects the Ozone concentration in the troposphere.