Projects

Ongoing projects

Project title: KADI (Knowledge and climate services from an African observation and Data research Infrastructure)

Description: The general porpuse of this interdisciplinary project between Africa and Europe is to develop a blueprint for a pan-African climate research infrastructure, with climate services as its guiding principle. This involves devising strategies to advance the most advanced scientific knowledge and services in Africa, crucial for bolstering collective efforts against climate change, as delineated in the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 13: ‘Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.’ In this context, it is neccesary to enhance the understanding of climate change in Africa and develop tools to mitigate its adverse effects. To achieve this, a consortium comprising partners from both continents will pool diverse experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. The overarching aim is to formulate a comprehensive framework supporting the vital societal role of research, termed here as ‘climate services,’ by collaboratively designing research capacities tailored to societal needs and expectations. This endeavor seeks to pave the way for the effective implementation of these services.

Finantial entity: European Union
Funding budget: (Total Consortium = 1.771.875,00€; AEMET as Beneficiary = 60.000,00€)
Contract number: grant agreement No 101058525
Length: 2022-2025
Number of involved institutions: 16
Principal investigator: Werner Kutsch (Integrated Carbon Observation System European Research Infrastruct, ICOS)

Project title: HARMONIA (International network for harmonization of atmospheric aerosol retrievals from ground-based photometers)

Description: The objective of this Action Cost is to improve and homogenize aerosol retrievals by establishing a network of institutions, instrument developers, scientific and commercial end users. The common aerosol columnar properties’ retrieval techniques consist of direct measurement of a bright source of radiation (sun, star, moon, sky) with multi-wavelength photometers. Several global photometric aerosol networks exist, with structural, algorithm and hardware-based differences in their related aerosol products and global standardization is needed. The work plan is structured into 5 Working Groups and it includes short-term scientific missions and workshops.
Finantial entity: European Union
Action Chair: Dr. Kazadzis Stelios (Physical Meteorological Observatory in Davos, PMOD)
Contract number: Cost Action CA21119
Length: 25 October 2022-24 October 2026

Project title: Spanish Network of Institutions Participating in ACTRIS

Description: The proposed network aims at consolidating, strengthening and promoting the role of the ACTRIS-Spain community in the framework of the ACTRIS ERIC consortium, to be legally established soon through its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union and to which Spain has officially expressed its commitment.
Financial entity: Redes de Investigación, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain)
Funding budget: 147.840 euros
Contract number: grant agreement No 871115
Length: 2023-2025
Number of involved institutions: 11 Spanish Institutions
Principal investigator: Dr. Lucas Alados Arboledas (Granada University)

Project title: Towards the Next Generation of Sensors for Surveying the Atmospheric Carbon Cycle (CarbonSurvey)

Description: The main expected contribution of this project is to address the current weaknesses of greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring networks through the development of a new generation instruments enabling unprecedented CO2 monitoring capabilities, the biggest GHG contributor to human-caused global warming. These new sensors will provide an accurate measurement of the gaseous concentration, not only at ground level but also at the different layers of the atmosphere, for a full characterization of the CO2 distribution. Moreover, the sensing systems will be specifically designed for a straightforward in situ deployment in different areas of interest, providing full coverage of the most important blind spots existing today. Thus, new generation of sensors could establish the necessary basis to guide decision-making policies in the Green transition process ahead. The necessary technical contributions required to reach the main goal of the project involve two complementary developments: (i) a Laser Heterodyne Radiometer capable of obtaining the vertical profile of CO2 and the isotopic ratio and (ii) a Quartz-Enhanced Photoacoustic Spectroscopy solution for in situ, surface, GHG measurements. The feasibility of the proposed methodology is supported by the extensive experience of the research team behind the proposal, composed of a large group of researchers from the Sensors and Instrumentation Techniques Group from the University Carlos III of Madrid and by members of the Izaña Atmospheric Research Center from the State Meteorological Agency of Spain (AEMET).

Finantial entity: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain)

Finding budget: 195.500,00 €

Contract number: TED2021-131695B-I00

Length: 1/12/2022-30/11/2024

Number of involved institutions: 2

Principal investigator: Marta Ruiz Llata and Pedro Martín Mateos (University Carlos III of Madrid)

Project title: ATMO-ACCESS – Sustainable Access to Atmospheric Research Facilities

Description: The ambition of ATMO-ACCESS is to address the needs for developing sustainable solutions based on the principles of open access and to develop guidelines and recommendations for governance, management and funding for efficient and effective access provision suited to distribute atmospheric RIs. This project investigates the most suitable mechanisms that could lead to the sustainable provision of access to atmospheric research infrastructures.

The main objectives of ATMO-ACCESS are:

– to provide coordinated open physical, remote and virtual access to state-of-the-art facilities and services in atmospheric RIs and further enhance their range of products, capabilities and accessibility for a wide range of users, including the private sector
– to engage facilities and their national stakeholders and direct them towards improved harmonisation of access procedures across the different member states, while also exploring modalities by which the use of atmospheric RIs can be further enhanced
– to explore and test new modalities of access that build on the complementarity and synergies among atmospheric RIs and respond to the evolving needs of users in relation to training, research and technology development, innovation and data services
– to identify the most suitable conditions for establishing sustainable access procedures across the EU for distributed atmospheric RIs, involving national and international stakeholders.
AEMET_IARC contribute to WP8: “Sustainable and strategic framework for access to distributed atmospheric Research Infrastructures”, offering access throughout the project to our facilities at IZO (for more information, please visit the project webpage).
Financial entity: European Commission (EU H2020-INFRAIA-2018-2020 Integrating and opening research infrastructures of European interest)
Funding budget: (Total Consortium = 14.999.949,75€; AEMET as Beneficiary = 239.600,00€ (including 45.000,00€ of University of Valladolid as Third-Party))
Contract number: grant agreement No 101008004
Length: 2021-2025
Number of involved institutions: 38 Institutions
Principal investigator: Dr. Natalia Prats, Dr. África Barreto (coordinator: Dr. Paolo Laj (CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS (CNRS))
Project webpage: https://www.atmo-access.eu/

Project title: ACTRIS-IMP – Aerosols, Clouds, and Trace Gases Research Infraestructure, Implementation Phase

Description: ACTRIS Implementation project (ACTRIS IMP) builds on the achievements of the successful ACTRIS PPP and on the scientific and technical deliveries of the ACTRIS-2 and EUROCHAMP-2020 projects. The ACTRIS IMP project objectives are based on the overall ACTRIS implementation phase objectives. Moreover, the ACTRIS IMP project will elevate ACTRIS to a new level of maturity and will set the required coordinated structures for coherent implementation actions, to be performed at both the national and European level.
The overarching objective of ACTRIS IMP is to coordinate and accomplish the actions required for implementing a globally-recognised long-term sustainable research infrastructure with operational services by 2025.
ACTRIS IMP will build on three strategic pillars: 1) securing the long-term sustainability of ACTRIS; 2) ensuring the coordinated implementation of ACTRIS functionalities; and 3) positioning ACTRIS in the regional, European and international science and innovation landscape. ACTRIS IMP will enable ACTRIS to respond to user-community needs and requirements for fully operational services supporting Earth system science, for atmospheric and climate research in particular. Moreover, ACTRIS IMP will enhance ACTRIS relevance, innovation potential, and societal impacts.
ACTRIS IMP will form the coordinated European framework having the necessary with the needed tools towards for achieving these objectives duringin the four-year duration of the project, also implementing effective risk management and contingency plans to fully embrace all requirements for its the successful implementation of ACTRIS.

Project title: Preparation and Operations of the Mission Performance Centre (MPC) for the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor Satellite”-Phase3 : Subcontract (BREWEB-ESA) Brewer Error Budget Eubrewnet

Description: The aim of the sub- project is to implement the total ozone error budget developed during the ATMOZ project on the Eubrewnet total ozone product for satellite validation. The project is

1. Total ozone uncertainty model on Brewer Algorithm due instrumental parameters.
2. Total ozone uncertainty model on Brewer Algorithm due to atmospheric parameters
3. Adaptation of the Eubrewnet outputs to be included on EVDC
4. Error information implementation on total ozone eubrewnet product

Project title: Medida de Gases de Efecto Invernadero en Ambientes Urbanos (MEGEI)

Description: Urban areas currently contribute over 50% of the global emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs). This percentage is growing since worldwide population is increasingly concentrating in the urban areas, going from over 50% nowadays to 70% by 2050. Consequently, monitoring urban GHGs emissions at small temporal and spatial scales is crucial to design effective GHGs control and mitigation policies. In this context, the project MEGEI (Monitoring of the Greenhouse Gases Concentrations in urban environments) aims to comprehensively characterize the urban emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) of different urban areas in Spain by using ground-based Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometry.

Project title: Sand and Dust Strom Early Warning System in the Magreb Region (SDS-Africa)

Project title: Global Atmospheric Watch in the Magreb-Sahara Region (GAW-Sahara)

Project title: EMPIR-MAPP – Metrology for Aerosol Optical Properties

Description: The overall aim of this project is to enable the SI-traceable measurement of column-integrated aerosol optical properties retrieved from the passive remote sensing of the atmosphere using solar and lunar radiation measurements. We will calibrate radiometers of the three largest aerosol monitoring networks at NMI laboratories and develop portable devices for the in-field calibration of network radiometers in order to validate and improve the current aerosol optical property retrievals using state-of-the-art inversion models. The goal is to standardise aerosol optical properties retrieval by shortening the calibration chain, reduce calibration downtime of network radiometers and establish their consistent dissemination including their uncertainty.

Project title: IASI for surveyiNg MethanE and NitrouS oxidE in the troposphere (INMENSE)

Description: Multiple evidences in our environment indicate climate change is happening. Future of the Earth-atmosphere system will depend, to a large extent, on our capability of understanding all the processes driving climate change, and on taking the needed decisions on climate change mitigation strategies. One of the major limitation for addressing these challenges is the lack of accurate observations of the atmospheric composition on all spatial and temporal scales. Of outstanding importance are the monitoring and the investigation of greenhouse gases (GHGs), as main drivers of the Earth’s climate change.

In this context, the INMENSE project aims to improve our current understanding of the atmospheric budgets of two of the most important well-mixed greenhouse gases, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Knowledge of the atmospheric distributions of CH4 and N2O concentrations, from the local to global scales, as well as their variability in time is essential for a better understanding of their sinks and sources, and for predicting their evolution in the atmosphere. In order to achieve this core objetive, the INMENSE project connects the three main pillars of the current observational strategies for investigating the atmospheric composition: high-quality and high-frequency ground-based observations, global coverage from satellite platforms, and chemistry transport modelling.

INMENSE will generate a new global observational data set of middle/upper tropospheric concentrations of CH4 and N2O with high and well-documented quality. For this purpose, it will further develop and evaluate combined CH4 and N2O retrievals that use the thermal emission spectra measured by the satellite sensor IASI (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer), aboard the meteorological satellites Metop. As a key component of the EUMETSAT Earth observation programme, the current IASI mission together with the new generation of IASI-NG (New Generation) sensors offer a unique opportunity for investigating and generating continuous and homogeneous long-term time series of CH4 and N2O observations at global scale for more than three decades (2006-2040). The IASI observations will be integrated with model estimates of the chemistry transport MOCAGE. Furthermore, it will be evaluated if it is possible to reduce the CH4 model errors that are correlated to the N2O model errors. By the integrated observation/modelling approach INMENSE will investigate the kind of CH4 and N2O sink/source signals that can be captured by high quality IASI observations.

In summary, this project will develop and validate different IASI CH4 and N2O products and reveal to what extent IASI can monitor the geographical distribution of CH4 and N2O surface emissions.

Project title: MOisture Transport pathways and Isotopologues in water Vapour (MOTIV)

Description: Remote sensing observations of water vapour isotopologue composition can give novel opportunities for understanding the different water cycle processes and their link to the climate. However, their observation, when using remote sensing techniques, is challenging. The project MUSICA addressed this task by consistently developing ground and space-based remote sensing retrievals and integrating them with well-calibrated in-situ measurements. In the context of MUSICA, it had extensively shown that NDACC/FTIR and MetOp/IASI retrievals of {H2O, δD}-pairs are in principle feasible and consistent with well-calibrated in-situ observations, and a very useful tool to investigate the lower/middle tropospheric moisture pathways.

The great potential of the different MUSICA products makes them a very useful tool in water vapour cycle research. This is the idea of the German project MOTIV, which combines the high-resolution MUSICA IASI isotopologue observations with high-resolution modelling, with the final objective of using the isotopologues as a diagnostic tool to investigate moisture pathways and evaluate the representation of moist processes in weather and climate models. The combination of simulations and MUSICA products allow statistically robust investigations, which give insight into the diurnal cycle, small-scale variations and effects of large-scale circulations of moisture in the atmosphere. Within MOTIV, the space-based isotopologue observations are complemented with the insitu continuous measurements recorded at IZO and PTO since 2012.

Project title: Core requirements to support forecast of meningitis (MACC Project)

Description: Monitoring Atmospheric Composition & Climate (MACC) is the current pre-operational atmospheric service of the European GMES programme. MACC is a Collaborative Project (2009-2011) funded by the European Union under the 7th Framework Programme.

It is coordinated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and operated by a 45-member consortium. MACC provides data records on atmospheric composition for recent years, data for monitoring present conditions and forecasts of the distribution of key constituents for a few days ahead. MACC combines state-of-the-art atmospheric modelling with Earth observation data to provide information services covering European Air Quality, Global Atmospheric Composition, Climate, and UV and Solar Energy. O-INTERFACE 3 (O-INT_3) is a service chain analysis in support to health community. It is one of the components of the OUTREACH cluster, which aims to maximize the benefit that MACC brings to the users of the atmospheric services offered by GMES. The Working Package O-INT_3.1 “Core requirements to support forecast of meningitis”, leaded by the Meteorological State Agency of Spain (AEMET), in joint cooperation with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) within the Sand and Dust Storm (SDS) Warning Advisory and Assessment System (WAS) Regional Center for Northern Africa, Middle East and Europe, has as a first goal the implementation of an operational service for dust forecast – initially using the model BSC-DREAM8b – and near real time monitoring for the Sahel region inside MACC. Large dust plumes from the southern Sahara and the Bodele depression are thought be linked to meningitis outbreaks in the Sahel region (the “Meningitis Belt”). This belt is an endemic area for meningococcal meningitis (MCM). Previous studies have analyzed the relationship between meningitis and environmental parameters obtained by satellite-based sensors and ground meteorological stations. The combined information from ground and satellite based observations and meteorological/dust models will improve the studies conducted to investigate the link between meningitis and environmental factors over the Sahara and the Sahel regions.

http://www.gmes-atmosphere.eu/

http://www.gmes-atmosphere.eu/about/project_structure/outreach/o-int/

Project title: CEOS Intercalibration of ground based spectrometers and Lidars

Description: Ground-based instruments (Dobson and Brewer) as well as satellite ozone retrievals present four major know issues not fully understood: (1) seasonal differences between Dobson and Brewer, (2) straylight in single monocromators brewers, (3) algorithm differences and (4) ozone cross section effects. Dobson and Brewer comparisons show a seasonal pattern with largest differences in late autumn and winter (high solar zenith angle). This difference is partially explained by the different sensitivity of the Brewer and Dobson algorithms to the temperature of the ozone layer. During the SAUNA campaigns the single Brewers exhibited striking column dependences at high SZA. This behavior is due in part to instrumental stray-light and calibration issues of the single monochromator instruments. As opposed to satellites which rely on ozone profile and temperature climatologies in their inversions, ground-based instrumentations use a fixed effective ozone altitude and temperature in their algorithms. This difference in implementation leads to differences between ground-based and satellites and also between ground-based time-series themselves. A usefull fix for the satellite community would be to assess the implementation of latitude dependent climatology in the ground-based algorithms. Another issue on the satellite validation is the use of different ozone cross sections in the retrieval algorithms. This problem is outside the scope of the project, but the implementation of changes on the ground-based algorithms mentioned above requires a reevaluation of the calibration of the instrument. This means that the calibration history has to be carefully documented and raw data files must be stored for further reanalysis. The issues described above can readily be improved by performing calibration from a well characterized double monochromator instrument after operating the instruments side-by-side for periods of 2 weeks over a large range of solar zenith angles and varying ozone column amounts. A number of field campaigns will be conducted in the 2008-2012 time frame where Dobson and Brewer spectrophotometers will be intercompared and calibrated using absolute calibration after the Langley Method to establish standards, while the transfer of the resulting calibration level into the network is done by regular intercomparisons. Through participation of FMI to some of the intercalibration campaigns, the calibration level will be delivered to the key Nordic Brewers. As regards the participation of the Regional Brewer Calibration Center for Europe (RBCC-E), selected Brewer network instruments from Europe and North-Africa will be operated in parallel to the European reference instrument. Such campaigns are planned in Spain, Switzerland and Algeria/Egypt. The European standard Dobson will be operated at Izana along the European standard double Brewer.
www.iberonesia.net

Project title: Study of isotopic composition of the precipitation and water vapor in the atmosphere over the Canary Islands for the characterization of local, regional and global processes involved in climate change over the subtropical Region (ECOMISAAC)

Project title: Formation and transport of atmospheric aerosol in a regional scale in Western Andalusia, Spain, (AER-REG)

Description: The objective of this project is to investigate the mechanisms by which secondary atmospheric aerosols are formed and transported in the regional scale in Huelva (a province of Spain located in Andalusia region). Previous studies in this region showed that some secondary aerosols, such as sulphate, ammonium and nitrate, and organic matter, exhibits a high background in the region, with similar levels in the rural, industrial and urban areas. These high background concentrations are related to the high degree of industrialization in the region and to some favourable conditions related to regional meteorology. The specific objective of the project is to investigate the chemical pathways by which the secondary aerosol are formed and the regional meteorological processes that result in the regional dispersion and transport of those secondary aerosols and their precursors. The project is developed in tow steps. In the first one, a set of field measurements campaigns are performed to collect experimental data of aerosol composition during meteorological scenarios typical of the summer and winter seasons. In the second step, the formation and regional transport of aerosols is modelled at a high resolution by using CAMx.

Project title: Equipo de Investigación Multidisciplinar sobre Cambios Climáticos Graduales y Abruptos y sus Efectos Medioambientales (GRACCIE)

Description: This is a large multidisciplinary research project whose objective is to promote the collaboration between research groups expertise in different areas related with the objective of understanding, analyzing and predicting climate change and its impacts, with emphasis on abrupt changes and extreme events. Interactions between climate change, ecosystems and greenhouse gases budgets and changes in extreme hydrological events in Europe, advanced climate and earth system modelling, climate impacts and public perception, links between climate and global water security will be addressed in line with results of the 4th IPCC assessment report. Adaptation to climate change and its impacts in Europe and Africa, and actions supporting the ‘Bali Roadmap’ and related post-2012 climate policy initiatives will receive particular attention. Other topics such us health effects of climate change, climate / meteorological related hazards, are also investigated.

Project title: Spanish network for environmental measurements with DMA (REDMAAS)

Description: The purpose of this project is to prompt the collaboration and interrelationship between the few Spanish groups that works with Differential Mobility Analyzers (DMA) for performing measurements of size distributions of fine and ultrafine particles within the context of air quality and atmospheric science studies. Some of the tasks and questions that are covered by the project are: annual instruments inter-comparisons, quantification of looses within the instruments and in sampling inlets and creation of a data base.

Project title: Comprehensive assessment of the impact of particle emissions by automobiles on air quality (EPAU)

Description: The goal is to implement a methodology for assessing the impact of particle emissions by automobiles on the air quality. It is aimed to develop a methodology for assessing the impact of such automobiles emissions on the concentrations of the particle number, black carbon, PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations. The methods should allow assessing the influence of fresh and aged emissions on the size, composition and concentrations of particles in the urban air.

Project title: MONET

Description: The objective is to implement a network for the study of long-term trends of the continental background in Africa and the intercontinental background of persistent organic pollutants as resulting from long-range transport of contaminants from European, South Asian, and other potential source regions, as well as by watching supposedly pristine regions, i.e. the Southern Ocean and Antarctica is designed.

Project title: Multi-platform remote sensing of isotopologues for investigating the cycle of atmospheric water (MUSICA)

Description: MUSICA aims to understand the atmospheric water cycle and its interplay with climate change applying unique long-term high quality and global remote sensing observations of tropospheric stable water vapour isotopologues. It is well established that water in its various forms plays a dominant role in nearly all aspects of the Earth’s climate system. Understanding the full cycle of evaporation, cloud formation, and precipitation is of highest scientific priority for predicting climate change.
The ratio of the isotopologues (e.g. HD¹⁶O/H₂¹⁶O) is affected by evaporation, condensation, and cloud processes, and offers a unique opportunity for investigating how water moves through the troposphere. Incorporating isotopologues in atmospheric general circulation models (AGCM) and comparing the isotopologue simulations to observations has the potential to test the models’ ability of reproducing the global atmospheric water cycle and its interplay with climate change. So far this research field has not been explored due to the lack of consistent, long-term, high-quality, and area-wide observational data. MUSICA will for the first time combine long-term ground- and space-based remote sensing measurements in a consistent manner, and will generate novel tropospheric HD16O/H216O data, taking benefit from both the high and well documented quality of the ground-based observations and the wide geographical coverage of the space-based observations. This unique observational data set will allow a new dimension of water cycle research.
MUSICA will collaborate with the Stable Water Isotope Intercomparison Group (SWING) in order to improve current state-of-the-art water isotope AGCMs. MUSICA will investigate and improve the understanding of tropospheric water vapour sources and transport pathways (ocean to continents, surface to upper troposphere, etc.), and empirically assess how well climate feedbacks are captured by current climate models and thereby it will constrain a major uncertainty of climate projections.

Project title: Towards a Near Operational Validation of IASI level 2 trace gas products (NOVIA)

Description: Earth observation data sets are fundamental for investigating the processes driving climate change and thus for supporting decisions on climate change mitigation strategies. Atmospheric remote sounding from space is an essential component of this observational strategy, since it allows for a global coverage. However, for a correct scientific interpretation of these observational records a continuous documentation of their quality is required. An optimal method would be a continuous inter-comparison of the space-based observations to high quality reference observations made at the Earth’s surface. In this context, the NOVIA project will exploit the high potential of the Spanish atmospheric super-site IARC (Izaña Atmospheric Research Centre, Tenerife), as a ground-based reference site, to perform the first comprehensive validation of the operational atmospheric level 2 trace gas products water vapour, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide of the remote sensor IASI (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer).
Within NOVIA we will document to what extent the ground-based data can be used as a reference for the space-based observations. First, we will inter-compare the many different high quality measurement systems operated at IARC, thereby documenting the quality and long-term consistency of the ground-based data. Second, we will analyse the temporal and spatial variability of the atmospheric parameters at IARC in order to decide about the appropriate temporal and spatial coincidence criteria for the validation of space-based measurements with ground-based observations. IARC’s ground-based FTS (Fourier Transform Spectrometer) experiment will be NOVIA’s core reference technique since it is the only measurement technique that can comprehensively validate many different atmospheric trace gas products. By means of this technique, NOVIA will document the quality of the whole IASI-A time series (2007-2012): What is the quality of the water vapour and ozone profiles? To what extent can IASI observe water vapour, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide annual cycles or anomalies? Is there a drift between the IASI and the ground-based reference data?
For May 2012 the next IASI instrument (IASI-B) is scheduled for launch. Based on our studies about the required coincidence criteria a database for IASI-B overpasses will be created and the comparison between IASI and ground-based FTS products will be performed shortly after the measurement. Such near operational validation of satellite sensor products is strongly requested by the satellite operators and the climate research community. Furthermore, it will be a good strategy for validating the huge amount of data series that will be produced by the next generation of satellite sensors. For instance, besides the three IASI sensors (A, B, and C) there will soon be MTG-IRS (Meteosat Third Generation – Infra Red Sounder) producing trace gas time series with unprecedented high temporal and spatial resolution from a geostationary orbit. Therefore, NOVIA will setup guidelines for the validation of such huge amount of operational climate monitoring products.

Project title: VALidation of IASI level 2 products (VALIASI).

Description: The VALIASI project will perform the first comprehensive validation of the IASI level 2 temperature, humidity, and trace gas products (O₃, CH₄, N₂O, CO, CO₂). To this end, ground-based FTIR high quality measurements of the total column amounts of H₂O, O₃, CH₄, N₂O, CO, CO₂ and the vertical profiles of temperature, H₂O and O₃ will be used as a reference data set. The FTIR data are a key element for climate monitoring and, in fact, given its high potential it is planned to assimilate the FTIR data in the ECMWF’s model.
The work develoved by VALIASI will be fundamental for studies that apply the operational IASI level 2 trace gas products in climate research (e.g., greenhouse gas and water cycle, stratosphere and troposphere processes, etc.). Furthermore, it will allow identifing the leading error sources, which is a prerequisite for further improvements of EUMETSAT’s operational retrieval algorithms.