Assimilation of fused atmospheric Sentinel data: first results from science to applications

Synergistic exploitation of simultaneous and independent measurements of atmospheric composition acquired by future mission Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5, as well as from the Sentinel-5 precursor already launched on October 13th, 2017, is the focus of the AURORA (Advanced Ultraviolet Radiation and Ozone Retrieval for Application) study, a three year project funded by the Horizon 2020 framework program of the European Union. AURORA investigates the potential of a novel approach for the combination of complementary information from multiple sources about atmospheric Ozone vertical distribution from the surface to the top of the atmosphere and for subsequent calculation of associated products, such as tropospheric partial columns and ultraviolet surface radiation. For the first time to our knowledge, the study examines the outcome of Data Assimilation Systems ingesting Ozone vertical profiles obtained by applying an innovative a posteriori data fusion method, the so called Complete Data Fusion, to synthetic datasets simulating the operational retrieval products expected from Low Earth Orbit and Geostationary Orbit measurements of the atmospheric Sentinels missions of the Copernicus Program. First results from a series of assimilation experiments, which according to the AURORA plans are executed using the TM5 and the IFS data assimilation systems and adopting an incremental approach, are now available. The presentation will provide a synthetic summary of the AURORA activities and will be focusing on the results of the comparison between the assimilation of fused data and the assimilation of standard retrieval products from observations of a virtual atmospheric scenario, as resulting from the outcome of assimilation experiments conducted with TM5. The assimilation experiments, currently on-going with TM5 and IFS data assimilation system, are including a run for assimilation of standard Ozone profiles retrieved from measurements by TEMPO (Tropospheric Emission Monitoring of Pollution) over North America and by GEMS (Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer) over Asia-Pacific. This is to check the impact of air mases outside the geographical coverage of Sentinel-4 onto the outcome of the assimilation systems. We will be finally reporting the preliminary results of the key aspects of the project aimed to link the scientific achievements of the AURORA study to applications and services. Examples of applications capable to use the advanced quality data for tropospheric Ozone and ultraviolet radiation at the surface produced by AURORA will be presented in some details.