Lufthansa Airbus A340-300 Viersen to observe the earth’s atmosphere

Lufthansa and the Jülich Research Centre have launched an innovative climate research project for the long-term observation of the earth’s atmosphere using scheduled Lufthansa services, an airline spokesman said.

The specially-developed measurement devices on board the Lufthansa Airbus A340-300 Viersen will routinely record atmospheric trace substances, and in the future, aerosols and cloud particles as well, while in flight. This shall occur all over the world and on a broad basis. The generated data will be digitally sampled, processed and analysed after every landing. The goal is the creation of a worldwide measurement infrastructure that would allow the global observation of the earth’s atmosphere by means of civil aviation. This gathered data will be of major importance for climate research and numerical weather forecasting. The first flight has started in Frankfurt to Lagos in Nigeria.

A several-year development phase involving 15 European project partners under the direction of the Jülich Research Centre has gone into the preparation of the research project named In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System.

The newly-developed instrument package is extremely robust, almost maintenance-free and can be efficiently integrated into an airline’s flight operations. The use of civil aviation aircraft allows for the collection of large quantities of important measurement data, in a volume and resolution that would otherwise not be possible using only research flights or satellites, remarked the spokesman.

Climate research has a long tradition at Lufthansa and IAGOS is already the fourth climate project being supported by Lufthansa.

For almost two decades, Lufthansa has been the only airline worldwide involved in climate research and air quality. The protection of the environment is a major corporate goal at Lufthansa and in addition to its multi-billion euro investments in a modern and environmentally-friendly fleet, Lufthansa also accomplishes this goal by placing a major focus on supporting scientific projects.