Advanced Clouds, Aerosols and WAter vapour products for Sentinel-3/OLCI

The CAWA project objectives are:

• Use and extend the Envisat/MERIS Cloud-Top Pressure algorithm to both land and oceans areas for the Envisat/MERIS instrument, and prepare the algorithm for the Sentinel-3/OLCI channels;
• Use and extend the use of an simultaneous aerosol optical depth and surface properties retrieval algorithm such as the simultaneous aerosol land reflectance AATSR approach or the Statistically optimized inversion algorithm for enhanced retrieval of aerosol properties from spectral multi-angle polarimetric satellite observations to include land and ocean retrievals for the ESA Envisat/MERIS instrument, as well as prepare the algorithm for the Sentinel-3/OLCI channels;
• Use and extend the DUE GlobVapour Envisat/MERIS total column water vapour algorithm over land to include oceans retrievals and prepare the algorithm for the Sentinel-3/OLCI channels;
• Provide of a homogeneous, well-characterised (i.e. provision of an end-to-end uncertainty estimation), geophysically validated and documented datasets of Envisat/MERIS and EOS-Aqua/MODIS Sentinle-3/OLCI-type cloud-top pressure (CTP), aerosol optical depth (AOD), and total column water vapour (TCWV);
• Perform a sensitivity analysis using the newly generates Envisat/MERIS atmospheric datasets on the atmospheric correction for land and ocean products for Envisat/MERIS;
• Increase of visibility and encouragement for the exploitation of dataset beyond the existing user community by participating in international activities such as GEWEX-ISCCP, AEROSAT, ICAP, GEWEX-GVaP, etc.;
• Optional: In the event of a successful launch of Sentinel-3, use the new CTP, AOD and TCWV algorithms, to generate 6-months of Sentinel-3/OLCI atmospheric products.

The aim of CAWA is to improve the advanced Envisat/MERIS atmospheric products (Cloud-Top Pressure - CTP, Aerosol Optical Depth - AOD, and Total Column Water Vapour - TCWV) and extend these to ocean areas in preparation of the Sentinel-3/OLCI mission. As part of this activity a complete time-series of fully characterised CTP, AOD and TCWV from the Envisat/MERIS instrument over land and ocean will be generated and the impact of their use on the atmospheric correction of land and ocean products will be investigated.

https://earth.esa.int/web/sppa/activities/multi-sensors-timeseries/cawa

Q3/2015 on the CAWA website