Atmospheric Chemistry Program Seminar

TROPOMI on-board the Sentinel-5 Precursor mission: a game changer for tropospheric composition monitoring from space by Michel van Roozendael,
Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy
"The Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) is the first atmospheric composition monitoring satellite in the Copernicus Sentinel series operated by EU. Successfully launched on 13 October 2017, it carries the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), which provides daily global observations of the nadir backscattered earthshine radiance in 3 spectral channels covering the UV, VIS, NIR and SWIR regions at the unprecedented horizontal resolution of 7x3.5 km2. BIRA-IASB has been involved in the mission preparation since early 2010 and is responsible for the algorithm baseline definition and maintenance of the tropospheric HCHO, SO2 and total ozone, as well as the operational validation as part of the S5P Mission Performance Center (MPC). After a brief introduction on the mission, instrument characteristics and retrieval methods, I focus on results obtained after one year of measurements with particular attention to species retrieved in the UV-Visible spectral range. Observations reveal the distribution of tropospheric species in unprecedented detail, allowing for a much more accurate identification of pollution sources at the level of cities, and various local emission sources both of natural and anthropogenic origin. In many cases, the sensitivity of the instrument exceed the expectations of the involved scientists."
 
Note unusual date and time (pizza will be provided!)