Dr. Marc Goulette - Development of an ultra-sensitive, compact and multi-purpose optical trace gas detection system for CARIBIC (Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container).

par Dr Marc Goulette (UCC Cork, Ireland)

vendredi 29 janv. 2016, 14:30 → 16:45 Europe/Paris

Mondrian (IPHC, bât.25)

CARIBIC (http://www.caribic-atmospheric.com) is a European large scale infrastructural environmental programme with the aim of studying global climate change. A container with 15 existing instruments is currently flying on board a commercial Lufthansa aircraft since 2005 and has already completed more than 330 flights across the globe. In an international team of researchers from University College Cork (UCC, Ireland), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, USA) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, Germany), I am coordinating the activities at UCC and heavily involved in the design and construction of a cutting-edge instrument for CARIBIC to collect airborne measurements of greenhouse gases, trace species and aerosol in the upper troposphere, at typical altitudes of 10 to 12 km. The design of the new instrument has been completed in 2015, and the device should be built and installed on board the CARIBIC container during the summer 2016. It will enable new measurements at the highest precision ever obtained in the field of very important gas species of the atmosphere, such as NO₂, NO₃, N₂O₅, and O₃ (Ozone), which are highly reactive species in the UTLS (Upper Troposphere Lower Stratosphere). The instrument is to characterize the physical and chemical connection in this region of the atmosphere where most air traffic takes place, and to gain information on atmospheric convection and the influence of different climate zones on species transport across the Earth. This is therefore a direct and efficient vehicle to contribute to global climate change.

Web page http://www.caribic-atmospheric.com