After two successful test flights, the A-LIFE (www.a-life.at) aircraft field experiment started today (3 April 2017). The field campaign is the core activity of the A-LIFE ERC project. For A-LIFE, we equipped the Falcon research aircraft of the German Aerospace Center DLR (www.dlr.de/dlr/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10203/339_read-275/) with a highly-sophisticated in-situ and remote sensing instrumentation, as well as meteorological sensors.

In the upcoming weeks, we will perform research flights in the Eastern Mediterranean (aircraft base Cyprus) to investigate the properties of absorbing aerosols (in particular mineral dust – black carbon mixtures) during their atmospheric lifetime and collect a new data set of key parameters of absorbing aerosols and their distribution throughout the tropospheric column in a unique region of interest.

Information about the flight plan and schedule is available in the "Plan of the Day"-section of the A-LIFE-Website (a-life.at/plan-of-the-day/).

For more details, please visit A-LIFE.at or go to the A-LIFE-Blog-section on this website.

Link to ERC (European Research Council):
erc.europa.eu