Aircraft-based tropospheric program

This activity will support the development and validation of the applied regional and global atmospheric Hg models ensemble with the best available information on the distribution of mercury in the troposphere (vertical and horizontal) and in the UT/LS region. Since aircraft studies are very costly, international GMOS-related activities will be taken into account to ensure that only complementary and non-duplicate experiments will be conducted (i.e. CARIBIC, NAAMEX and ETMEP). The ongoing CARIBIC project (Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrumented Container) is EC funded and will be an integral part of GMOS. Measurements onboard a Lufthansa Airbus 340-600 will be continued and will further complete the unique data set generated since May 2005.

Intensive exchange with ongoing Programmes is ensured, therefore the three major global aircraft experiments (CARIBIC, NAAMEX and ETMEP) dedicated to mercury will contribute to the GMOS objectives. Objectives of this activity will be accomplished through:

	Retrieval of past atmospheric mercury measurements in the troposphere and stratosphere
	Continuation of CARIBIC mercury measurements in the upper troposphere & lower stratosphere.
	European Tropospheric Mercury Experiment Program (ETMEP)
	Validation of CARIBIC data by independent aircraft studies
	QA/QC of tropospheric measurements