Projects

Further projects

WHERE GRASP HAS LED OR CONTRIBUTED TO

PRISMA + S5P demonstration for COVID-19 studies

Recent climate remote study showed essential effect of COVID-19 on trace gases emissions, in particular, of NO2 and CO2. In Europe, Italy was one of the first countries to be infected by the COVID-19 virus, starting in the beginning of February 2020, and numbers soaring up to over 100,000 infections and 20,000 deaths by mid-April. Severe limitations of people movements following the lockdown determined a significant reduction of pollutants concentration mainly due to vehicular traffic (PM10, PM2.5, BC, benzene, CO, and NOx), which is visual, for example, in S5P images of NO2 distributions.

The lockdown also led to an appreciable drop in SO2. Despite the significant decrease in NO2, the O3 exhibited a significant increase, probably, due to the minor NO concentration. At the same time the effect on aerosol emission and loading has not been reported yet widely in the scientific literature, although news and social media stories report spectacular cleaner air due to various lock-downs (e.g. “Himalayas being visible from India for the first time in 30 years”). Furthermore, a possible influence of long-term exposure to small particulate matter on COVID-19 mortality has been reported. In general, aerosol distribution is strongly spatially and temporally inhomogeneous. 

Therefore, to investigate COVID-19 effect on aerosol the remote sensing measurements with frequent revisiting time and fine spatial resolution may be necessary. In this project we investigate the possibility to exploit PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa, an Italian Space Agency (ASI) hyperspectral mission) fine resolution measurements together with daily S5P/TROPOMI and AERONET measurements for motoring environmental dynamics associated with COVID-19 epidemic appearance and evolution in regional scale.

Source: https://eo4society.esa.int/projects/prisma/


Optimisation of the GRASP algorithm for the 3MI L2 aerosol retrieval

Aerosol composition and associated spatial distribution are key parameters for the improvement of the air quality and climate products. Therefore, EUMETSAT will increase the number of satellite aerosol parameters provided operationally, which are driven by the 3MI instrument. The Multi-Viewing Multi-Channel Multi-Polarisation Imaging (3MI) instrument is planned to fly on the Metop-SG A satellites, as part of the EUMETSAT Polar System-Second Generation (EPS-SG) mission, in the timeframe beyond 2022. It is a radiometer dedicated to aerosol and cloud characterisation for climate monitoring, atmospheric composition, air quality and numerical weather prediction.

This polarimetric instrument is a heritage of the POLDER instruments, with improved capabilities. The spectral range (12 channels) was extended from the visible-near-infrared (410 to 910 nm) to the shortwave-infrared domain (up to 2200 nm). The spatial resolution (4 km at nadir) and the swath (2200 × 2200 km2) were also improved compared to previous POLDER instruments. As POLDER, 3MI will provide multi-polarisation (-60°, 0°, and +60°), and multi-angular (10 to 14 views) images of the Earth top of atmosphere outgoing radiance.

The level 1 products available to the users will be the geolocated Stokes vectors on the native geometry (Level 1B) and the geoprojected multi-directional and spectral Stokes vectors. Level-2 products will provide geophysical and microphysical parameters for aerosols and clouds. The aerosol retrieval for the 3MI operational product will use the GRASP algorithm. The retrieval provides extended set of aerosol and reflectance surface parameters.

Source: https://www.eumetsat.int/3MI-aerosol-retrieval

 

CO2M level-2 aerosol science support

DIVA is setting-up of a pilot hub to collect, handle, archive, and exploit in a synergetic way observational data, as provided by the future integrated atmospheric composition ground-based network infrastructure, for the validation of ESA and Copernicus missions.

The study focuses on preparation of the Algorithm Theoretical Baseline Document (ATBD) providing the detailed description of the GRASP algorithm implementation and adaptation for retrieving aerosol from CO2M-MAP measurements. The GRASP ATBD for CO2M-MAP re-uses the GRASP algorithm originally developed for the Multi-Angle, Multi-Spectral, Multi-Polarization Imager (3MI) on EPS-SG, as well as for the Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI) imager on Sentinel-3. It also draws on the knowledge and experience gained in the application of the GRASP algorithm to real polarimetric measurements (such as those from POLDER/PARASOL).

The study has also started to generated realistic simulations of the algorithm performance. Specifically, a set of synthetic CO2M-MAP proxy observations have been simulated using CO2M-MAP observation geometries. The simulations cover diverse observational situations, including scenarios with high and low pollution by different kinds of aerosols over water and, especially, over vegetated and highly reflective land surfaces. These synthetic data will be used for producing examples of level-2 GRASP aerosol and surface products, as well as for demonstrating and optimising the performance of GRASP retrievals from CO2M-MAP measurements.

The objective of this study is to produce an ATBD document for the GRASP aerosol properties retrieval algorithm, adapted for the observations from the CO2M-MAP instrument that will be supporting the CO2/CH4 retrievals from the CO2M spectrometer (the main instrument of the CO2M mission).

Source: https://www.eumetsat.int/CO2M-aerosol-level-2

 

CAMS EvOlution (CAMEO)

The CAMS EvOlution (CAMEO) project will enhance the quality and efficiency of the CAMS service and help CAMS to better respond to policy needs such as air pollutant and greenhouse gases monitoring, the fulfilment of sustainable development goals, and sustainable and clean energy.

The study  CAMEO will prepare CAMS for the uptake of upcoming satellite data, advance the data assimilation (DA) and inversion capacity of the global and regional CAMS production systems beyond the state-of-the-art and develop methods to provide novel uncertainty estimates for CAMS products in direct response to some of the main outstanding expressed user requirements. CAMEO will contribute to the medium- to long-term evolution of the CAMS production systems and products. The transfer of developments from CAMEO into subsequent improvements of CAMS operational service elements will be a main driver for the project.

Source: https://www.cameo-project.eu/

 

DIVA – Demonstration of an Integrated approach for the Validation and exploitation of Atmospheric missions

DIVA is setting-up of a pilot hub to collect, handle, archive, and exploit in a synergetic way observational data, as provided by the future integrated atmospheric composition ground-based network infrastructure, for the validation of ESA and Copernicus missions.

Current advances in atmospheric composition measurements from space require access to independent, high-quality, global atmospheric composition ground-based data for the validation of the upcoming European EO missions and payloads S3, S5p, ADM-Aeolus, EarthCARE, S4, S5, MERLIN, GOME-2c, 3MI. To address the societal benefits and scientific objectives set forth by the missions, the downstream services and GEOSS, coordinated development of synergistic ground-based measurements techniques and algorithms are needed.

Source: https://diva.inoe.ro/

 

HARPOL – Harmonizing and advancing retrieval approaches for present and future polarimetric space-borne atmospheric missions

Atmospheric aerosol particles strongly influence climate by scattering and absorbing light (direct forcing) and by changing cloud properties (indirect forcing). The corresponding radiative forcing represents one of the most uncertain radiative forcing terms as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). To improve our understanding of the effect of aerosols on climate and air quality, measurements of aerosol chemical composition, size distribution, optical properties like Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) and Single Scattering Albedo (SSA), as well as the aerosol height profile are of crucial importance. It has been demonstrated by studies on synthetics measurements, airborne measurements, and space-borne measurements that Multi-Angle Polarimetric (MAP) measurements are needed to provide information about detailed aerosol properties like size distribution, refractive index, SSA, in addition to the AOT.

The only MAP instrument that has provided a multi-year data set (2005-2013) in the past has been the French POLDER-3 instrument on the PARASOL mission. Now space agencies realize the large potential of MAP instrumentation, in the 2020s several of such instruments will be launched, e.g. 3MI on METOP-SG (ESA-2023), SPEXone and HARP-2 on PACE (NASA-2023), and a MAP on the CO2-Monitoring mission (ESA-2025) and A-CCP (NASA-2028). To cope with the increased information content on aerosols of MAP instrumentation and to assess the climatic effect of aerosols, new tools for retrieval need to be (further) developed. So far, this development has lagged behind the instrument development, which is the reason for the under-exploitation of the existing POLDER-3/PARASOL data sets.

Currently, there are two algorithms that have demonstrated capability at a global scale to exploit the rich information content of MAP measurements: the Generalized Retrieval of Aerosol and Surface Properties (GRASP) algorithm, developed at the Laboratory of Atmospheric Optics (LOA) of the University of Lille and the GRASP-sas company,  and the Remote Sensing of Trace gases and Aerosol Properties (RemoTAP) algorithm developed at SRON – Netherlands Institute for Space Research. Both algorithms show good performance against ground based AERONET measurements and already important scientific advancement has been made using the corresponding data products. Nevertheless, when looking at global maps, significant differences are apparent between the two algorithms. In order to improve retrieval products from PARASOL and the upcoming missions containing MAP instrumentation (3MI/METOP-SG, SPEXone/PACE, HARP2/PACE, MAP/CO2M) it is essential to understand the reasons for the differences between the GRASP and RemoTAP algorithms. Therefore, in this project we propose to perform an extensive and systematic comparison between the two algorithms. We expect this will lead to optimized algorithm choices for both algorithms leading to better aerosol products and error characterization. The project will results in improved global data sets of aerosol properties from both algorithms.

Source: https://eo4society.esa.int/projects/harpol/