Joint project trials new way to exploit satellite retrievals
Dragani, Rossana
ECMWF is participating in the EU-funded AURORA (Advanced Ultraviolet Radiation and Ozone Retrieval for Applications) project, which is exploring new ways of exploiting the high-resolution data that will be provided with unprecedented accuracy by the Copernicus Sentinel-4 (S4), -5 (S5) and -5P (S5P) satellites. AURORA will trial the use of data fusion of ozone retrievals from measurements in different spectral regions made by different sensors to reduce the amounts of data users need to handle, e.g. within data assimilation systems. Data fusion analytically combines atmospheric retrievals from different sources into a single, fused product characterised by greater quality than the individual retrievals. It will work with ad-hoc generated radiances that simulate measurements from the S4 and S5 satellites, which are scheduled to launch after the end of the project, and possibly with measurements from S5P, depending on its availability. The project, which is funded under the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme, started in February 2016 and will run for three years. ECMWF is making a major contribution to the project as one of the nine project partners (Box A). It also stands to benefit from it as AURORA offers an opportunity to refine the ozone assimilation while trialling it with fused ozone products. If successful, this approach could be exported to all applications that use ECMWF's Integrated Forecasting System, including the EU-funded, ECMWF-run Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
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