2020

Chasing methane and sulfur dioxide in Europe

During the METHANE-To-Go-Europe field experiment airborne in-situ measurements with the DLR Falcon 20 were carried out successfully under regulations related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 14 mission flights mainly targeted emissions from offshore gas platforms in the Adriatic Sea, the city of Naples and power plants in the Balkans.

Leibniz Award for IPA Scientist Veronika Eyring

Prof. Veronika Eyring will receive the Leibniz Award of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. She is affiliated with IPA and the University of Bremen and is honoured in recognition of her achievements in the field of climate modelling. Those models are an important basis for understanding climate change. (Article in German)

Global air transport contributes 3.5 percent to global warming

Global air transport accounts for 3.5 percent of anthropogenic climate warming. Only one third of aviation's climate impact is due to carbon dioxide emissions and two thirds to non-carbon-dioxide effects. These are the findings of a comprehensive international study, which provides the most comprehensive insight to date into the impact of air transport on the climate.

ESMValTool version 2.0 released

A fully revised version of the Earth System Model Evaluation Tool was recently made available to the scientific community. The release was made possible by a shared effort of the international ESMValTool development team, which consists of about 200 developers from 70 institutions.

Discovery of record-breaking mountain waves above the South American Andes

Members of the Middle Atmosphere matrix group observed gigantic mountain waves in southern Argentina. Highly precise measurements were made with the CORAL lidar.

Noise weather: Quantification of the influence of weather on noise in the vicinity of a motorway

The research project 'Noise weather' targeted the influence of weather on sound propagation in computational methods. This project has been successfully completed by proposing a practical and simple procedure for improving calculations according to German standards, also verified by long-term measurements.

Towards spaceborne monitoring of CO 2 emissions from power plants – DLR mission „CO2Image“ now in phase A

A reliable global observation system is needed for the independent monitoring of global CO 2 emissions, as foreseen in the Paris agreement. A recent study from IPA now shows that DLR’s compact satellite demonstrator mission CO2Image would be able to detect 90% of the emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Ground-level reactive nitrogen oxides and ozone due to road traffic

Particularly in urban areas, emissions from land traffic impact air quality significantly. A study of DLR scientists shows for the first time that in Europe land traffic emissions are responsible for 50% to 70% of the ground-level reactive nitrogen, leading to contributions of up to 16% of ground-level ozone.

Increased warming in latest generation of climate models likely caused by clouds

As scientists work to determine why some of the latest climate models suggest the future could be warmer than previously thought, a new study indicates the reason is likely related to challenges simulating the formation and evolution of clouds.

Up to 90 percent less contrails due to reductions in air traffic forced by COVID-19 travel restrictions

Travel restrictions to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to a massive reduction in global air traffic. Researchers at the DLR IPA have now analysed the impact of reduced air traffic on the formation of contrails over Europe.

Aeolus satellite data now publicly available

The IPA-led Aeolus Data Science and Innovation Cluster (DISC) has achieved a major breakthrough in improving Aeolus data quality. Due to this achievement, altitude-resolved wind measurements of the ESA’s Earth Explorer Satellite Aeolus are now provided to all interested weather centres and scientific users within three hours of collection.

First analyses of SouthTRAC observational data shed light on Southern Hemispheric gravity wave behaviour

Measurements of ALIMA aboard HALO during SouthTRAC show the propagation of gravity waves into the stratospheric polar night jet. This is the first experimental proof that these waves are refracted towards the polar vortex, hundreds of kilometres away from their origin at the mountains of the southern Andes and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Machine learning provides novel pathways to assess the skill of climate models

A new study shows how causal inference methods, a part of artificial intelligence and machine learning, can indicate the skill of climate models and demonstrate potential to constrain longstanding uncertainties in climate change projections.

Ozone hole over the Arctic

Ozone data derived from satellite measurements are showing currently a typical ozone hole feature in the polar Northern hemisphere (Arctic). Usually such a feature has been observed in polar Southern hemisphere in spring (Antarctic) but not in the Arctic.

Impact of enhanced chlorofluorocarbon-11 emissions on the ozone layer

For the first time a Chemistry-Climate Model (CCM) has been used to assess the impact of unexpected emissions of chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC-11, CFCl 3 ) on the stratospheric ozone layer.