ESA's Atmospheric Composition Validation and Evolution - Science Community Recommendations
Dehn, Angelika¹; Casadio, Stefano²; Fehr, Thorsten¹; Bojkov, Bojan^1
1ESA/ESRIN, ITALY; ²Serco S.p.A., ITALY

ESA has organised the Atmospheric Composition Validation and Evolution (ACVE) workshop in March 2013 at ESRIN, Frascati. More than 130 scientists have submitted abstracts to present latest results from their on-going research activities with particular focus on calibration and validation (Cal/Val) challenges and evolution.

The status of reprocessed data sets from atmospheric chemistry instruments on ERS-2 (GOME) and ENVISAT (GOMOS, MIPAS, SCIAMACHY) were presented as well as results from ESA Third Party Missions and other atmospheric composition instruments. Future ESA missions and evolution aspects of validation methodologies were further discussed during the ACVE workshop.

A main goal was to collect recommendations from the science community for data quality and algorithm improvements for ESA's Atmospheric Chemistry instruments, based on the comparison of independent measurements from ground, airborne and satellite instruments. The Quality Working Groups and Expert Support Laboratories of the individual missions will assess this important feedback from the Cal/Val experts in order to achieve further evolved data products. As a final outcome ESA plans to prepare for major reprocessing campaigns in 2015 for the GOMOS, MIPAS and SCIAMACHY archived data sets.

Another key purpose of the ACVE workshop was also to provide a forum for Cal/Val experts of future ESA atmospheric composition missions. The Sentinel-5 Precursor with the foreseen launch in 2015 will continue the legacy of GOME, SCIAMACHY, GOME-2 and OMI.

In this perspective it is also crucial to maintain essential validation capabilities across multiple missions, including Cal/Val infrastructures. This has been a further central discussion point at the ACVE and the scientists were asked to identify recommendations for future validation activities.

The presentation will summarise the results and recommendations received during the ACVE workshop.