Nitrogen Oxides and Ozones from B-747 Measurements (NOXAR) during POLINAT 2 and SONEX: Overview and Case-Studies on Continental and Marine Convection ...

• Main Authors: Jeker, Dominique, Pfister, Lenny, Brunner, Dominik, Boccippio, Dennis J., Pickering, Kenneth E., Thompson, Anne M., Wernli, Heini, Selkirk, Rennie B., Kondo, Yutaka, Koike, Matoke, Zhao, Yongjing, Staehelin, Johannes
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Maryland Shared Open Access Repository 1999
• Subjects: Environment Pollution; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/m2ipmn-hono; https://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/34922

In the framework of the project POLINAT 2 (Pollution in the North Atlantic Flight Corridor) we measured NO(x) (NO and NO2) and ozone on 98 flights through the North Atlantic Flight Corridor (NAFC) with a fully automated system permanently installed aboard an in-service Swissair B-747 airliner in the period of August to November 1997. The averaged NO, concentrations both in the NAFC and at the U.S. east coast were similar to that measured in autumn 1995 with the same system. The patchy occurrence of NO(x), enhancements up to 3000 pptv over several hundred kilometers (plumes), predominately found over the U.S. east coast lead to a log-normal NO(x) probability density function. In three case-studies we examine the origins of such plumes by combining back-trajectories with brightness temperature enhanced (IR) satellite imagery, with lightning observations from the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) or with the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) satellite. For frontal activity above the continental ...