AVATAR: Aviation and Atmosphere: an Aerospace study on aerosols and gases

AVATAR is a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (CGL2014-55230-R). Period: 01/01/2015 - 31/12/2018. PIs: Carmen Córdoba Jabonero, Área de Investigación e Instrumentación Atmosférica (AIIA), y Mª Paz Zorzano Mier, Centro de Astrobiología (CAB). 

Description

The main objective of the activities carried out in the AVATAR project is to advance knowledge about the influence of aerosols, clouds and gases in the atmosphere, and their corresponding implications for Climate Change and Air Quality. And all of this from an aerospace perspective. Various methodologies have been used (in-situ instrumentation and remote sensing techniques) and from various platforms (on the ground, aircraft and satellites), in addition to the application of atmospheric models.

In this sense, it is worth highlighting the added value that comes with the synergistic use of all these types of methodologies in order to provide relevant results. The main advances and achievements include: I) the problem of the effect of aircraft emissions has been addressed in two fields: a) in the environmental pollution of an airport, obtaining a first approximation of the concentration of polluting gases, and although the results are still preliminary, they do provide a first analysis of the air quality in airport environments, a topic that is of great interest at present (H2020); and b) in relation to the formation of cirrus-contrails induced by air traffic, carrying out a study, still unfinished, on the formation of this type of cloud and the changes in its properties in two environments differentiated by their degree of frequency of aircraft passage (climatic implications). The level of knowledge of these two types of studies is still low, in general; hence also their novelty and the fact that the interpretation of the results does not yet lead to definitive conclusions. (II) Progress has also been made in the field of gas-aerosol interaction processes and the formation of new particles, where different studies have been carried out on the interaction between certain gases and particles on the surface, especially during desert dust events, evaluating their impact on air quality and climate. (III) Research has been carried out on the relevance of the properties of aerosols and clouds in their radiative effect, estimating the ARE (Aerosol Radiative Effect) of various types of aerosols and the CRE (Cloud Radiative Effect) of cirrus-type clouds, providing great value to the state of knowledge on Climate Change. (IV) In order to give a spatial dimension to this type of studies, advances have been made based on the synergy between satellite observations and surface measurements in: (a) the distribution of minor gases in the subtropical atmosphere, such as IO and HCHO, and their seasonal evolution; and b) the behaviour of gases and aerosols during events of interest (dust intrusions, short and long-haul fires, pollination episodes), studying both their surface implications and their vertical impact, and where the use of atmospheric models has been an essential contribution. V) On a more technical level, progress has been made on the integration of atmospheric instrumentation for gases and aerosols in aircraft, thus promoting the use of both the ICTS (C-212 aircraft) and the INTA RPAS as atmospheric payload platforms.

Therefore, it should be noted that the activities of the AVATAR project are in line with the 5th society challenge “Action for climate, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials”.