The EarthCARE mission – science and system overview

Abstract

Abstract. The Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) is a satellite mission implemented by the European Space Agency (ESA), in cooperation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), to measure global profiles of aerosols, clouds and precipitation properties together with radiative fluxes and derived heating rates. The simultaneous measurements of the vertical structure and horizontal distribution of cloud and aerosol fields, together with outgoing radiation, will be used in particular to evaluate their representation in weather forecasting and climate models and to improve our understanding of cloud and aerosol radiative impact and feedback mechanisms. To achieve the objective, the goal is that a retrieved scene with footprint size of 10 km × 10 km is measured with sufficiently high resolution that the atmospheric vertical profile of short-wave (solar) and long-wave (thermal) flux can be reconstructed with an accuracy of 10 W m−2 at the top of the atmosphere. To optimise the performance of the two active instruments, the platform will fly at a relatively low altitude of 393 km, with an equatorial revisit time of 25 d. The scientific payload consists of four instruments: an atmospheric lidar, a cloud-profiling radar with Doppler capability, a multi-spectral imager and a broadband radiometer. Co-located measurements from these instruments are processed in the ground segment, which produces and distributes a wide range of science data products. As well as the Level 1 (L1) product of each instrument, a large number of multiple-instrument L2 products have been developed, in both Europe and Japan, benefiting from the data synergy. An end-to-end simulator and several test scenes have been developed that simulate EarthCARE observations and provide a development and test environment for L1 and L2 processors. Within this paper the EarthCARE observational requirements are addressed. An overview is given of the space segment with a detailed description of the four science instruments, demonstrating how the observational requirements will be met. Furthermore, the elements of the space segment and ground segment that are relevant for science data users are described and the data products are introduced.

Aerosol Effects on Water Cloud Properties in Different Atmospheric Regimes

“…In this regard, data available from active sensors aboard CloudSat satellite (Stephens et al., 2002) and Cloud‐Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations satellite (Wielicki et al., 2010) are useful. Except them, Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite (Wehr et al., 2023)—expected to be launched in 2024—provides detailed information of columnar and vertical characteristics of aerosols and clouds, outgoing radiances and fluxes from the top‐of‐the‐atmosphere, and vertical velocities of cloud particles. Additionally, the Atmospheric Observation System (AOS), which is a part of NASA's Earth System Observatory, is implementing AOS Storm (inclined) project, aiming to perform time‐varying collocated observations of the vertical motions, clouds, and aerosols by expecting to launch a satellite with active sensors and microwave radiometers in 2028.…”

The EarthCARE Mission: Science Data Processing Chain Overview

“…The MSI (Wehr et al, 2023) embarks two cameras; the four channel VNS camera spanning Visible, Near Infrared and two Short Wave IR bandwidths, plus the TIR camera with channels covering three Thermal IR bandwidths. These cameras produce the ISPs that are transmitted to the PDGS and processed to L0 data.…”

“…Earth-CARE is an ESA Explorer mission that is being carried out in a collaboration with JAXA, which is providing one of the instruments. A mission overview by Wehr et al (2023) describes the mission, its science objectives, observational require-Figure 1. The ESA "EarthCARE Production Model" shows all ESA data products and the CPR level 1b product (C-NOM), which is produced by JAXA.…”

“…This product facilitates the application of synergistic (L2b) classification and retrieval algorithms as well as the synergistic use of a number of single-instrument (L2a) products. It is closely linked to the merged observations product (AM-MO) which directly uses the JSG definition in order to produce a file containing co-located observations.5 Level 2 data processors and productsEarthCARE level 2 data products include a comprehensive range of geophysical parameters related to aerosols, clouds, precipitation and radiation Wehr et al (2023). (section 8.3) give an overview of the ESA and JAXA L2a/L2b data products containing retrieved aerosol, cloud, precipitation and radiation parameters and supporting science activities.…”

An evaluation of microphysics in a numerical model using Doppler velocity measured by ground-based radar for application to the EarthCARE satellite

“…One of the challenging satellite projects is the Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE, Illingworth et al 2015;Wehr et al 2023) satellite, which is a joint mission by the European Space Agencies (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agencies (JAXA). EarthCARE has multiple passive and active sensors in the same body to investigate clouds, aerosol, precipitation, and associated radiation budgets.…”