Internal consistency of the IAGOS ozone and carbon monoxide measurements for the last 25 years

The In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System (IAGOS) is a European research infrastructure that equips the Airbus A340/330 with a system for monitoring atmospheric composition. The IAGOS instruments have three different configurations: IAGOS-Core, IAGOS - Measurement of Ozone and Water Vapor by Airbus In Service Aircraft (IAGOS-MOZAIC) and IAGOS - Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container (IAGOS-CARIBIC). Since 1994, there have been a total of 17 aircraft equipped. In this study, we perform an intercomparison of about 8000 landing and takeoff profiles to compare the O-3 and CO measurements performed from these different configurations. The collocated profiles used in the study met various selection criteria. The first was a maximal 1 h time difference between an ascent or descent by two different aircraft at the same airport and the second was a selection based on the similarity of air masses based on the meteorological data acquired by the aircraft. We provide here an evaluation of the internal consistency of the O-3 and CO measurements since 1994. For both O-3 and CO, we find no drift in the bias amongst the different instrument units (six O-3 and six CO IAGOS-MOZAIC instruments, nine IAGOS-Core Package1 and the two instruments used in the IAGOS-CARIBIC aircraft). This result gives us confidence that the entire IAGOS database can be treated as one continuous program and is therefore appropriate for studies of long-term trends.

Automated summary

IAGOS is a European research infrastructure that equips aircrafts with systems for monitoring atmospheric composition. An intercomparison study on O-3 and CO measurements from different configurations showed no drift in bias since 1994, indicating the data consistency for long-term trend analysis.