Chemical characteristics assigned to trajectory clusters during the MINOS campaign
Michael Traub1, Horst Fischer1, Marian de Reus1,
Robert Kormann1, Jörg Heland2, Helmut Ziereis2,
Hans Schlager2, Rupert Holzinger1, Jonathan Williams1,
Carsten Warneke3, Joost de Gouw3 and Jos Lelieveld1
1 Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany
2 Institute for Atmospheric Physics, DLR, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
2 NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado, USA
During the MINOS campaign in August 2001 a total of 14 measurement flights with the DLR
Falcon aircraft from Heraklion, Crete, were performed. One objective of this campaign
was to investigate the role of long-range transport of pollutants into the Mediterranean
area.
An analysis of 5 day back trajectories computed for locations along the flight tracks
indicated that in the lower troposphere (0-4 km) air masses originate from east and
western Europe, in the mid troposphere (4-8 km) from the Atlantic Ocean region and in the
upper troposphere (8-14 km) from the Atlantic Ocean and from South Asia. We allocated
all trajectories to clusters based on their height and source region. The concentrations
of ozone, nitrogen monoxide, total reactive oxidized nitrogen, formaldehyde, methanol,
acetonitrile, acetone, PAN (peroxyacetyl nitrate), carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and
methane measured along the flight tracks are examined in relation to the different
cluster trajectories. The goal is to determine the chemical characteristics of each air
mass cluster and to investigate the major differences in light of pollution source
categories and regions.