Air Canada and IAGOS equip an Airbus A330 with climate and air quality sensors

Air Canada announced that one of its Airbus A330 aircraft has been fitted with special diagnostic sensors in collaboration with In-Service Aircraft for a Global Observing System (IAGOS), an international non-profit organization that uses commercial aircraft as a global observation platform. climate change and air quality. This collaboration will enable IAGOS to collect valuable global data on climate parameters, which will be used by the international scientific community, as well as by forecasting services such as the Copernicus Atmosphere Service, for essential research on global climate change and air quality. 

"As the world's leading airline, we are proud to partner with IAGOS to advance its important climate research work. Air Canada is committed to sustainability at scale and working with IAGOS is a meaningful way to contribute to the collection of valuable data information on climate parameters for future scientific research. The information collected will also help provide more accurate weather data, crucial to airline operations, and allow for a deeper understanding of the changing dynamics of climate," said Valerie Durand, Head of Relations with Investors and Air Canada Corporate Sustainability.

"We are delighted that Air Canada is the latest airline to join the IAGOS program. Measurements of greenhouse gases, reactive gases, aerosols and clouds are crucial in the global observing system to support societal needs for a greener future. Air Canada will bring important new data to understand climate change issues in northern regions, which are warming more than twice as fast as elsewhere, as well as new data to track smoke plumes from wildfires in across the continent in order to improve air quality forecasts," said Jean-Marie Flaud, President of IAGOS-AISBL, CNRS and Ministère de L'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, France.

"After just a few days of operation, the aircraft has already detected exceptional levels of carbon monoxide over eastern Canada from the intense Alberta wildfires. Scientists will use this data to understand the impact of events like this on the atmosphere, on air quality and ultimately on climate," said Dr. Hannah Clark, IAGOS-AISBL Executive Secretary.

"These precise measurements of Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SCLCPs) will be invaluable for trend and process studies, addressing Environment and Climate Change Canada (SCCC) priorities to understand and track the origin, fate and impact of critical pollutants in the environment IAGOS data already plays an important role in ECCC research and monitoring, and the addition of an Air Canada aircraft to the IAGOS fleet will greatly increase the availability of data on Canada and allow for a Better visualization of the global movement of air pollution This will allow us to better understand the impact of forest fires and urban pollution, the additional effects of climate change on these processes,and assess the success of reducing emissions," said Dr. David W. Tarasick, Canada's Senior Research Scientist for Environment and Climate Change.

As part of this collaboration, Air Canada has installed IAGOS's most advanced weather monitoring devices on the Fin 939, one of its A330-300 wide-body aircraft. The device will measure a number of parameters, such as ozone, water vapor, greenhouse gases, reactive gases, aerosols, clouds, etc. during various phases of the flight, such as takeoff, cruising altitude, and landing.

One of only two aircraft types certified for IAGOS systems along with the A340, the A330 performs a mix of transatlantic and transcontinental flights for Air Canada, providing key data for IAGOS.

The IAGOS device is a compact system with measurement probes that are permanently installed in the aircraft, close to the flight deck. After each flight, the measurement data is automatically transmitted to the central database of the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) research center in Toulouse, France.

According to IAGOS, commercial aircraft are an ideal platform for collecting trace gas measurements as they can measure effectively at high altitude where sample collection is difficult. IAGOS collaborates with airlines around the world, which will enable the validation of global climate models and the provision of near real-time data to researchers around the world. The research results are freely available and are currently used by some 300 organizations worldwide.

Air Canada has set an ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to zero across all of its global operations by 2050. To achieve this, Air Canada has set medium-term absolute net GHG reduction targets for 2030 in its air and ground operations compared to its 2019 baseline, and has committed to investing $50 million in sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and research and development on carbon reduction and removal.