Climate change is one of the greatest societal challenges of the 21st century. The dominant source of global warming is the increase of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the Earth`s atmosphere. atmosphere. The two most important of those species are carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Together they account for ~82% of the anthropogenic radiative forcing. …
The importance of nitrous acid (HONO) in atmospheric chemistry stems from its role as precursor of the OH radical.The latter is among the most important oxidizing molecules and controls the degradation of pollutants and greenhouse gases, and contributes to ozone formation and photochemical smog. Accurate representation of HONO sources is highly relevant to the modeling …
NOODLESALAD aims to develop computational methods for improving the satellite-based air quality estimates. More specific, it will concentrate on improving the air quality key indicator PM2.5, which is the dry mass concentration of fine particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers (micrograms per cubic meter of air). This activity will be …
Time to apply for the Earth Observation (EO) training course organised in collaboration between ESA and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): deadline for application is 15 July 2022. The course will take place on 19 – 23 September 2022 at the premises of the Andoya Space Centre (ASC) in Andenes, Norway. Intended for researchers, …
The detection of trace gas plumes allows us to improve attribution of pollutant emissions and photochemical processing in the global troposphere. Data collected by the ESA TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) has resulted in a growing number of case studies that have used ad hoc methods to detect plumes for science applications. Developing a more comprehensive …
Clouds play an important role in the energy budget of our planet: optically thick clouds reflect the incoming solar radiation, leading to cooling the Earth, while thinner clouds act as “greenhouse films”, preventing escape of the Earth’s long-wave radiation to space. Cloud response to ongoing greenhouse gases climate warming is the largest source of uncertainty …
Stratospheric ozone (the “ozone layer”) protects the biosphere from harmful UltraViolet (UV) radiation. Ozone (O3) is expected to recover as a consequence of the Montreal Protocol signed in 1987 and its Amendments regulating the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances (ODS). The stratospheric halogen amount (mainly bromine and chlorine) released by ODSs reached its maximum abundance in …
Observing and understanding aerosol properties is fundamental for the remote sensing community, yet things get more complicated in cloudy environments. Pixels located in the transition zone between pure cloud and pure aerosol are often discarded by both aerosol and cloud algorithms, despite being essential for studying aerosol–cloud interactions, which still represent the largest source of …
A high level of innovation in algorithm development and methodological approach is the key feature of the activities performed during the ESA S5P+Innovation AOD/BRDF project. Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) is the single most comprehensive variable for the remote assessment of the aerosol load in the atmosphere. Atmospheric aerosols, such as aerosols from the burning of …
3rd EO AFRICA R&D Facility Online Course Deadline for applications: April 1, 2022 Introduction to the course: Satellite Earth observation, hydro-meteorological modelling and data assimilation provide a powerful combination for quantifying hydroclimatic variables to effectively address water management issues in this online course, an introduction will be given to the theory and techniques to observe the …
