relazione Del.5.4; WP5 progetto FP7 Aphorism

The main rationale of MACE approach leads to exploit the complementarity between Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO), Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and in situ sensors data. The validation procedure reported in this document mainly consists in comparing the quantitative improvement achieved using the new integrated approach, MACE, with respect to the conventional ones mainly based on different systems and/or models. In some cases, although we tackle with the difficulty of disposing of ground truth for the estimated parameters, as frequently discussed during the project, we succeed in validating the results comparing the products with independent measurements from other techniques, or estimates obtained through consolidated models or methodologies. This aspect represents probably the main issue of the validation activities, which demanded for each case a specific approach. Despite this challenge, the quantitative improvement of the new products with respect to the state of the art is generally demonstrated. The results reported in this document mainly consists in a comparison of the results available through a standard way with respect to that obtained with the integrated approach.