JAL has collaborated with the Meteorological Research Institute of the Japan Meteorological Agency and the JAL Foundation on tropospheric-observation projects since 1993. These projects involve installing monitoring equipment on Boeing 747 aircraft flying regular routes between Australia and Japan, bringing back samples collected from the atmosphere at an altitude of around 10,000 m and measuring the concentration of greenhouse gases, with a focus on carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane.

Under the new tropospheric-observation project, which began in 2005, JAL, working with the National Institute for Environmental Studies, has installed continuous CO2-measuring equipment (CME) on five aircraft and is now engaged in a program of more frequent measuring of CO2 concentrations over a broader area. Once data has been accumulated over a number of years, we expect these activities will represent a major contribution to research on CO2 cycles and global warming.

There are four significant benefits from researching CO2 under the new tropospheric-observation project begun in 2005. Firstly, data collection is frequent, measurements being taken daily. Secondly, it is possible to measure CO2 concentrations at various locations around the globe. Thirdly, it is possible to survey variations in CO2 levels at different altitudes between the earth’s surface and the upper troposphere (vertical profiling). And fourthly, it is now possible to obtain spatially continuous data.

In particular, the innovation of vertical profiling provides extremely valuable data for CO2 research, and was practically unavailable anywhere in the world until now. Global warming has many different causes, but more than half of those are related to the impact of CO2, which is why it is most important to study CO2.

It is believed that approximately half the fossil fuels that have been burned by humankind are in the air. But we don’t know in any real detail where the remaining half has gone. Part has been absorbed by the sea and part by terrestrial plants. We do not know, however, whether CO2 will continue to be absorbed in the same way in the future. If we can gain an understanding of the mechanisms of global CO2 cycles, it will be easier to come up with countermeasures.

The new tropospheric-observation project uses specially designed equipment installed on five aircraft to take tropospheric greenhouse-gas measurements. Installing the equipment on the aircraft, however, was extremely difficult. We had to refurbish the aircraft, which involved creating a space to install the equipment on a mode of transport where space is at a premium and reinforcing the area around the equipment to ensure safety. It was also necessary to submit the equipment to rigorous screening by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority and the Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau to see whether it was capable of withstanding intense and prolonged vibration, pressure and heat, and also to check whether there was any electrical interference with other onboard instruments. The new tropospheric-observation project was made possible in 2003 with government-commissioned research funds from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and passing the screening process was our greatest challenge.

JAL is, of course, a private-sector company, and there are limits to the labor and cost burdens the company can shoulder. By way of contrast, researchers tend to state their needs in terms of the kind of research they would like to carry out, with little regard to the costs involved. The role of the JAL Foundation is to intercede between the company and research institutes to coordinate their various desires as well as negotiate with the government agencies that endorse and provide research grants for such projects. This project was an exercise in pure social contribution, which would not have been possible if these three parties had not pooled their labor, knowledge and costs.

Once this project is fully operational, it will be possible to gather a vast amount of data by using approximately 3,000 JAL flights per year. Deciding how to best apply this data in CO2 research is an issue for the future.