Airborne Measurements of Aerosols and Trace Gases over Europe during the COVID-19 Lockdown Phase

Abstract:

To prevent the uncontrolled spread of the SARS-COV2 virus in spring 2020 extensive travel restrictions were imposed all over Europe, drastically reducing the amount of ground and air traffic. This situation – with largely reduced anthropogenic emissions from traffic and industrial activities – created an unprecedented testbed to investigate the state of the atmosphere with respect to its composition. During the BlueSky campaign in May-June 2020, the DLR research aircraft Falcon 20E was deployed with an extensive suite of instruments to measure a variety of trace gas, aerosol and cloud properties in-situ throughout the troposphere. A total number of 12 research flights over central Europe reaching from northern Italy to the west coast of Ireland where performed sampling the air at altitudes from the boundary layer to the lower stratosphere. Here we present first results of aerosol particle measurements put in context of comparable observations taken during previous flight campaigns. In this way we investigate the effect of reduced ground and air traffic on atmospheric composition.