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Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3969
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3969
27 Jan 2025
 | 27 Jan 2025
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT).

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

Johannes Schneider, Christiane Schulz, Florian Rubach, Anna Ludwig, Jonas Wilsch, Philipp Joppe, Christian Gurk, Sergej Molleker, Laurent Poulain, Florian Obersteiner, Torsten Gehrlein, Harald Bönisch, Andreas Zahn, Peter Hoor, Nicolas Emig, Heiko Bozem, Stephan Borrmann, and Markus Hermann

Abstract. In this study, we present a fully automated aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) that is operated during regular passenger aircraft flights in the CARIBIC (Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the Atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container) part of the European Research Infrastructure IAGOS (In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System – www.iagos.org). The instrument, termed CARIBIC-AMS, is able to measure the mass concentration of non-refractory aerosol species, namely sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, and organics, in a particle diameter range of approximately 50 – 800 nm. The main challenge was the mechanical and electrical redesign of a commercial instrument in order to comply with the operating and safety requirements in the IAGOS-CARIBIC container-laboratory before and during flight. In the container-laboratory, the instrument has to operate fully autonomous, typically during four consecutive long-haul flights à 10 hours. The CARIBIC-AMS weighs 74 kg, has a volume of 0.16 m3 and consumes 360 W of electrical power during regular operation. Due to short time for evacuation of the vacuum chamber to sufficiently low pressures before measurement, detection limits are higher during regular flights than during ground operation and were determined to be 0.035 µg m-3 STP (sulfate), 0.055 µg m-3 STP (nitrate), 0.69 µg m-3 STP (organics), and 0.38 µg m-3 STP (ammonium) for a time resolution of 30 seconds. Since the IAGOS-CARIBIC project aims for climatological, regular, long-term data, longer data averaging times are possible, thereby lowering the detection limits accordingly. For 5-minute averaging, for instance, the above detection limits correspond to 0.011 µg m-3 STP (sulfate), 0.017 µg m-3 STP (nitrate), 0.22 µg m-3 STP (organics), and 0.12 µg m-3 STP (ammonium). Data validation, calibration and instrument characterization were conducted by means of laboratory-based comparisons with existing, established aerosol mass spectrometers. Here we report on the details of the automation, the instrument characterization as well as first in-flight data measured in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere during two IAGOS-CARIBIC flights and during the TPEx (Tropopause composition gradients and small-scale mixing Experiment) field campaign, conducted in 2024 using a Learjet as research aircraft over Northern Europe.

Competing interests: At least one of the (co-)authors is a member of the editorial board of Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.
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IAGOS-CARIBIC operates an instrumented container laboratory on commercial regular passenger...
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