ATMO-ACCESS

ATMO-ACCESS pilot activity for international stake holders to support the validation of EarthCARE

In the framework of the ATMO ACCESS pilot activities for internal stakeholders, a project has been initiated to support the validation of the European Space Agency's (ESA) EarthCARE mission.

EarthCARE is an Earth Explorer Mission scheduled for launch in May 2024 that will perform observations of the atmosphere using a high spectral resolution lidar, a Doppler cloud radar, a multi-spectral imager and a broadband radiometer. It can thus be considered as a space-based ACTRIS aerosol and cloud remote sensing observatory.

To meet the extensive validation needs of these novel spaceborne observations, the ATMO-ACCESS pilot scheme was utilized for a dedicated project, resulting in a consortium of about 50 participating observatories plus the ACTRIS central facilities.

The main goal of the initiative has been to establish a near-real-time work and data flow for the validation of EarthCARE. Most of the collected correlative data is directly delivered to the ESA Validation Data Center (EVDC). In parallel to these activities, intercalibration with ESA reference lidars and MPLNet (NASA) have been performed.

Contribution of TROPOS

TROPOS took the lead to coordinate this project and acts as link between ACTRIS and ESA. Furthermore, TROPOS is involved with its active remote sensing stations in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Mindelo, Cabo Verde, and Leipzig, Germany. As well as with Exploratory Platforms OCEANET and LACROS.

Project information

This activity has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme through the ATMO-ACCESS Integrating Activity under grant agreement No 10100800.