Sentinel 5 Precursor / TROPOMI: Science Opportunities and Level-2 Products
Veefkind, Pepijn¹; Loyola, Diego²; Richter, Andreas³; Aben, Ilse⁴; van Roozendael, Michel⁵; de Smedt, Isabelle⁵; Siddans, Richard⁶; Wagner, Thomas⁷; Nett, Herbert^8
1Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), NETHERLANDS; ²German Aerospace Center, GERMANY; ³University of Bremen, GERMANY; ⁴Netherlands Institute for Space Research, NETHERLANDS; ⁵Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, BELGIUM; ⁶Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UNITED KINGDOM; ⁷Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, GERMANY; ⁸European Space Agency, NETHERLANDS

The Copernicus Sentinel 5 Precursor (S5P), scheduled for launch in 2015, is the first of the sentinels dedicated to monitoring of the atmospheric composition. The main application areas of the mission are air quality, climate and the ozone layer. The single payload of the S5P mission is TROPOpsheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI). TROPOMI is a nadir viewing shortwave spectrometer that will measure in the UV-visible wavelength range (270-500 nm), the near infrared (675-775 nm) and the shortwave infrared (2314-2382 nm). TROPOMI will have an unprecedented spatial resolution of about 7x7 km² at nadir. The spatial resolution is combined with a wide swath to allow for daily global coverage. The high spatial resolution serves two goals: (1) emissions sources can be detected with more accuracy and (2) the number of cloud-free ground pixels will increase substantially.

The TROPOMI/S5P geophysical (Level 2) data products include nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone (total column, tropospheric column & profile), methane, sulphur dioxide, formaldehyde and aerosol and cloud parameters. An experienced consortium of institutes from The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and the UK is developing these data products. For the TROPOMI/S5P mission it is essential that high-quality Level 2 data products are produced timely and that there is consistency between them. To coordinate this a Level 2 Working Group (L2WG) is established. This group plays a central role for the S5P mission, both pre-launch and during the lifetime of TROPOMI. During the development of the algorithms the L2WG focuses on technical and algorithmic subjects, whereas in-flight the focus will shift more to data quality and validation as well as the improvement of existing products and the development of additional products.

In this contribution we will present the TROPOMI instrument focussing on new science opportunities that it will enable. We will present the data products, highlighting the new developments and key challenges.