This diagram is a typical overview of measurement results made during a flight. We cannot show, or discuss all the data, and even the data shown are specialized, but we like to give you some taste of the highly interesting data CARIBIC obtains.
You see in the top panel the flight trajectory from Windhoek to Muenich. Note that near the equator, the pilot changed course. He wanted to avoid areas of convection (strong uplift or downdraft of air), in order to keep the comfort of his passengers and crew.
The grey marks (WAS 25-7 for instance), indicate the distance over which a certain air sample has been collected. This collection takes about 20 minutes, and at about 250 meter per second, the aircraft has travelled about 300 km.
The second panel from above shows with a blue line the pressure of the outside air. This pressure is about 250 mbar. Aircraft fly so high, because at this low pressure, in this thin air, aircraft can move so fast. The purple line gives the altitude of about 10 to 11 km. The temperature (amber line) is about -40 degrees Celcius (summer).
The 3rd panel shows the basic "air pollution" data. The black dots are for carbon monoxide (not the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide). Much of the carbon monoxide we find is from cars, industry, and from forest fires. Basically, incomplete burning produces carbon monoxide. (Cars these days are fitted with catalysts to reduce their pollution.) You note the sharp increase of carbon monoxide for samples 4, 5, and 6.
This increase is caused by forest and savanna fires in Africa. Thus the polluted air is transported upwards to the level at which the aircraft is flying. The thin red and blue lines indicate the presence of very fine particles. These particles are also transported upwards from lower levels, or are even formed in the air at 10-11 km altitude.
The green line presents ozone levels. These levels are relatively low, except towards the end of the flight near Muenich. But this is not ozone from pollution (ozone smog....), but stratospheric ozone. Near the end of the flight, the aircraft actually flew a little bit in the stratosphere ! High ozone, basically part of the ozone layer that protects us from damaging uv solar radiation. In "the old days" pilots could smell the aircraft entering the stratosphere. They would smell ozone (like an old photocopier). Modern aircraft have catalytic convertors to "kill" all ozone for the safety and comfort of the passengers and crew.
Each CARIBIC flight gives information for over 50 different gases!! It is clear that there is considerable pollution there where the aircraft are flying. This pollution is from fires (but also lightning produces gases) and it is from mans activities (industry and transport). The task we have is to know the emissions of gases and particles and the fate of these during their voyage in our atmosphere.

In close scientific collaboration, the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI in De Bilt, NL) contributes maps of wind trajectories from the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forcast (ECMWF) in Reading, UK. Check here for this flight (click on the picture to enable zoom in/out).
This diagram shows the origin of the air that the CARIBIC aircraft was measuring. Shown is exactly where the air was 5 days before the aircraft was flying through it! These data are from the ECMWF, and were produced by the KNMI in Holland (Peter van Velthoven). Red means air closer to the surface, blue means air at 250 mbar (about flight level). Over Africa, the air moved slowly at lower altitudes (green, some red). Towards Muenich, the aircraft is in the strong westerly flow. Here the air actually came from the east coast of the USA.
It is interesting to note, that the air we measure is sometimes from far away. The great advantage of CARIBIC is that we can sample air over large distances. And that this air is representative of large regions. If we measure at the earth surface, there often is simply too much local pollution, to get a representative picture of the atmosphere.