A synergistic approach to exploit observations from Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5, TEMPO and GEMS missions: the AURORA concept.

The development of innovative techniques to better exploit the synergy between atmospheric observations from remote sounding instruments covering a wide range of spectral regions is crucial to reduce data quantity and improve data quality in terms of uncertainty and resolution. The Advanced Ultraviolet Radiation and Ozone Retrieval for Applications (AURORA) was a 3-year project supported by the European Union in the frame of its Horizon 2020 Call (EO-2-2015). The core idea of AURORA was to exploit advanced products for tropospheric ozone and UV surface radiation derived from GEO (Sentinel-4) and LEO (Sentinel-5 and Sentinel-5P) platforms, obtained through the assimilation of fused products retrieved from different spectral regions (UV, Visible, Thermal IR). In the framework of the project, the AURORA Consortium collaborated with the GEMS (Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer) and TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution) mission teams. The aim was to gain insights into the potential added value of TEMPO data over North America and GEMS data over Asia-Pacific when combined with atmospheric Sentinels' observations over Europe. An experiment was run using two data assimilation systems ((C-)IFS and TM5) to evaluate the impact of assimilating observations from the geostationary missions TEMPO and GEMS, over geographical regions outside the Sentinel-4 spatial coverage. The ultimate goal of our endeavour was to demonstrate the superior performance of a synergistic approach to process remote-sounding observations. The results obtained from the cooperative effort between the AURORA Consortium and GEMS and TEMPO, as well as their potential follow-up, are reported and discussed in this presentation.