HALO Project

The "High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft" (HALO) is a research aircraft for atmospheric research and earth observation of the German science community (https://www.halo.dlr.de/). OurVOC group flies two mass spectrometers on-board the aircraft, one is a PTR-ToF-MS and the second a fast GC-MS. The first field campaign we conducted with HALO focused on monsoon outflow, while second on biomass burning emissions from Africa. In Dec 2022. Jan 2023 the aircraft we flew over the Amazon rainforest to follow VOC oxidation chemistry and the influence of convection (0-15km). We were able to track rainforest emissions up to 12km and to discover exciting new particle forming chemistry at dawn.

 

Publications

Tripathi, T. B. E. Krumm, A. Edtbauer, A. Ringsdorf, N. Wang, M. Kohl, R. Vella, L. A. T. Machado, A. Pozzer, J. Lelieveld, J. Williams. Impacts of convection, chemistry, and forest clearing on biogenic volatile organic compounds over the Amazon. Nature communications. 2025 Accepted, in press.

Curtius, J., M. Heinritzi, L. J. Beck, M. L. Pöhlker, N. Tripathi, B. E. Krumm, P. Holzbeck, C. M. Nussbaumer, L. Hernández Pardo, T. Klimach, K. Barmpounis, S. T. Andersen, R. Bardakov, B. Bohn, M. A. Cecchini, J. P. Chaboureau, T. Dauhut, D. Dienhart, R. Dörich, A. Edtbauer, A. Giez, A. Hartmann, B. A. Holanda, P. Joppe, K. Kaiser, T. Keber, H. Klebach, O. O. Krüger, A. Kürten, C. Mallaun, D. Marno, M.Martinez, C. Monteiro, C. Nelson, L. Ort, S. S. Raj, S. Richter, A.Ringsdorf, F. Rocha, M. Simon, S. Sreekumar, A. Tsokankunku, G. R. Unfer, I. D. Valenti, N. Wang, A. Zahn, M. Zauner-Wieczorek, R. I. Albrecht, M. O. Andreae, P. Artaxo, J. N. Crowley, H. Fischer, H. Harder, D. L. Herdies, L. A. T. Machado, C. Pöhlker, U. Pöschl, A. Possner, A. Pozzer, J. Schneider, J. Williams, and J. Lelieveld. Isoprene nitrates drive new particle formation in Amazon’s upper troposphere. Nature volume 636, 124–130, 2024.

Lelieveld, J., E. Bourtsoukidis, C. Brühl, H. Fischer, H. Fuchs, H. Harder, A. Hofzumahaus, F. Holland, D. Marno, M. Neumaier, A. Pozzer, H. Schlager, J. Williams, A. Zahn, H. Ziereis, The South Asian monsoon—Pollution pump and purifier, Science, 14 Jun 2018: eaar2501, DOI: 10.1126/science.aar2501, 2018.

Bourtsoukidis, E., Helleis, F., Tomsche, L., Fischer, H., Hofmann, R., Lelieveld, J., and Williams, J.: An aircraft gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer System for Organic Fast Identification Analysis (SOFIA): design, performance and a case study of Asian monsoon pollution outflow, Atmos. Meas. Tech. 10, 5089-5105, 2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-5089-2017.