More than two decades of world-leading atmospheric science.

In Summer 2014, FAAM and the NILU Norwegian Institute for Air Research partnered for a project to measure methane (CH4) seepage from the Arctic seabed sediments west of Svalbard, Spitsbergen, funded by the Research Council of Norway. FAAM took airborne measurements at the same time as ship observations of the seabed and water column, and land-based atmospheric measurements.  High concentrations of dissolved methane were detected above the seabed, but FAAM’s measurements and computer modeling showed that maximum methane fluxes had limited influence on methane in the atmosphere. NILU scientists published these results in 2016 in Geophysical Research Letters, and this research remains significant in the field of oceanic methane emissions, reaching the top 5% of all research outputs tracked by Altmetric.

In 2016 and 2017, FAAM flew over Katla, a highly hazardous subglacial volcano in Iceland that erupted 100 years ago.  Working with scientists from the Icelandic Meteorological Office, FAAM’s measurements quantified Katla’s CO2 emissions and showed that it is one of the largest volcanic sources of CO2 on Earth, responsible for up to 4% of total global volcanic emissions.  

The results from the Katla study were published in 2018 in Geophysical Research Letters, and its publication Attention Score is in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric, confirming its high impact in the field of subglacial volcanism and global CO2 budget research.

In 2019, FAAM conducted the first airborne measurements of methane (CH4) over three wetland areas in Zambia in the Upper Congo basin.  Tropical wetlands are thought to account for roughly one-fifth of the global methane emissions, but studies on tropical wetlands in Africa are extremely rare.  The results revealed that the land surface models commonly used to budget methane actually underestimate emissions, meaning that wetlands may be emitting more methane than previously thought. If more methane is being emitted by the many other African wetlands then we may have overestimated the amount of methane that humans can yet emit before reaching 2°C of global warming. 

The research output from this study, published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles in 2022, is in the top 3% of papers published in 2022 on this topic in Altmetric.

Dust from the Sahara and other deserts affects the weather and our climate. During 2011 and 2012, FAAM delivered crucial observations of airborne desert dust as part of the Fennec field campaign in the west African Saharan heat low. This region of the world is poorly represented in forecasting and climate models as few observations have been in this area before. One of the highlights of Fennec was the confirmation of the existence, presence and extent of super-coarse (larger than 10 microns) and giant (larger than 62 microns) dust particles measured by FAAM over the Sahara in Mali and Mauritania. Previously it was believed that particles of this size were too large to travel far in the atmosphere but measurements with aerosol and cloud probes confirmed that they were ubiquitous and present up to altitudes of around 5 km. At these heights, they can travel far across the Atlantic.

FAAM dust measurements, furthered by the ICE-D/AER-D field campaign at Cape Verde in 2015, provided further evidence that super-coarse dust particles exist within dust plumes in the atmosphere, and are missing in weather and climate models, which affects our ability to predict dust plume transport and the contribution of dust to climate change, since larger dust particles are able to cause more of a warming effect than smaller ones. This has led to a deluge of model investigation and improvement studies to understand how we can improve dust in weather and climate models using observational airborne data and understand their deficiencies, much of which is still ongoing.

Between 2019 and 2022, the FAAM Airborne Laboratory flew in the clean marine atmosphere over the North Atlantic Ocean as part of the North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study (ACSIS) project, taking measurements during different seasons. Our measurements confirmed that the ocean is a significant source of gas-phase urea.  The study was published in 2023 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the results have significant implications for our current understanding of the global nitrogen biogeochemical cycle, which is essential for plant growth and crop yields.  The attention score of this research paper is in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.

Atmospheric aerosols and their interaction with clouds, despite improvements in the period between the ICCP AR5 in 2014 and ICCP AR6 in 2021, are still responsible for some of the largest uncertainties in climate models. Observational measurements are still essential to improve climate models. In 2017 the FAAM aircraft flew out of Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean, working in collaboration with French airborne, and US ground and airborne campaigns to quantify the impacts of biomass burning aerosols, improve climate models, and calibrate satellite measurements. These measurements have also been used to develop better predictions about the impacts of aerosols on the climate.

There continues to be an urgent need to understand how aerosol particles influence clouds, and for climate models to replicate these processes accurately.FAAM’s work has a real world impact, contributing directly to the implementation of the advanced microphysics CASIM scheme in the Met Office Unified Model.

A landmark study in 2011 synthesized organic aerosol measurements from 17 aircraft campaigns between 2001 and 2009, including by FAAM. It provided the first comprehensive evaluation of global model performance against vertical organic aerosol distributions. The study found that models systematically underestimated observations in 13 of 17 campaigns. FAAM’s vertical profiling capability was crucial in showing that model bias increased with relative humidity and that additional sources and sinks were required to match observed organic aerosol concentrations. 

In April 2010 the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted, shutting down airspace across much of Europe and impacting flights globally.  Equipped with in situ particulate and gas phase instrumentation as well as lidar for remote measurement of the ash cloud vertical structure, the FAAM aircraft was able to safely operate in ash-contaminated airspace over the North Sea and UK providing data unavailable from any other platform during the Eyjafjallajökull crisis [Johnson 2012, Newman 2012, Turnbull 2012]. The CAA and Met Office used this data to map the evolution of the ash cloud and decide when and where to reopen UK airspace.

In 2012, FAAM was deployed to measure an uncontrolled gas leak on the Elgin gas platform in the North Sea. We measured the methane flow rate during six flights over a three week period, within five days of the initial wellhead blowout on 25 March. Our measurements were used to confirm the changes to the leak (both total flowrate and composition), allowing Total’s relief engineers to reoccupy the platform and begin plugging the leak. The well intervention operation began on 15 May, and the leak was stopped 12 hours later. At Total’s request, FAAM undertook one further flight on 15 August to independently confirm that there were no residual emissions from the Elgin platform.  FAAM’s services were praised as “the most robust and valuable of all” by Total and the then Department of Energy & Climate Change.  FAAM’s work helped to limit the duration of the incident, which cost Total $1.5M per day and losses of £130M during 2012 Q3/Q4.

Similar disasters in the oil and gas energy sector required airborne responses both on- and off-shore, such as the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 [Ryerson 2011, Ryerson 2012], the Aliso Canyon blowout in Los Angeles in 2015 [Conley 2016], or the Nord Stream gas pipeline sabotage in the Baltic Sea in 2022 [Reum 2025, Harris 2025].  

For the 2022 Nord Stream underwater pipeline explosions, a report from the United Nations Environment Programme International Methane Emissions Observatory UNEP/IMEO showcases the importance of different measurement approaches, marine, airborne, tall-tower and satellite- based, for quantifying methane emissions in similar contexts [UNEP-IMEO, Synthesis Report on Nord Stream Gas Leaks, Feb 2025].

The FAAM Airborne Laboratory is the only European research aircraft to have taken part in the first peer-reviewed assessment of methane measurement technologies in Europe.  FAAM’s aircraft sampled a methane controlled release conducted in Lacq (France) in September 2024, supported by Stamford University under the auspice of TotalEnergies and the UNEP/IMEO, to validate its detection and quantification capabilities [UNEP-IMEO, Validation of Methane Quantification Technologies, Feb 2026]. FAAM successfully detected and quantified an on-shore methane release, the results of which are currently being peer-reviewed [Lakomiec 2025, McManemin 2025].

In 2020, international maritime regulations were introduced to significantly reduce the amount of sulphur allowed in ship fuels. FAAM measured the impact of, and compliance with, these new limits during the ACRUISE campaign. FAAM flew in the eastern Atlantic and English Channel in 2019, before the restrictions came into force and afterwards in 2021 and 2022. Prior to 2020, pollutants and cloud condensation nuclei fell by approximately a factor of 5 across the sulphur emission control boundary. After 2020, a ten-fold decrease in sulphur emissions was seen in open ocean shipping lanes while the proportion of ships exceeding regulatory limits also dropped by a similar proportion. 

The FAAM aircraft was among the first in the UK to operate routinely on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and has been involved in several projects to understand the impacts of SAF on both the environment and the aircraft using this type of fuel. The most recent of these, GRound-Based and Inflight Measurements of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (GRIM-SAF), was the first instance of an aircraft “chase” experiment in the UK; flying in close formation with another aircraft with the aim of sampling its exhaust plume multiple times throughout a flight.

In 2016 FAAM went to India with 50% funding from the Ministry of Earth Sciences. The aircraft was stationed in the northeastern city of Lucknow, prior to the arrival of the monsoon, in Bangalore in the south at the start of the monsoon, and back in Lucknow during the monsoon season in July. Flights covered much of the country and surrounding seas in a range of meteorological conditions.