Illuminating the Interplay between Clouds, Aerosols, and Radiation: Introducing the ESA EarthCARE L2 processing chain.

The interactions between clouds, aerosols, and solar and terrestrial radiation play  key roles in the Earth’s Climate. Despite a long history of satellite observations, further high-quality novel observations are needed for atmospheric model evaluation and process studies. It has been recognized that true height-resolved global observations of cloud and aerosol properties are essential for making progress. EarthCARE is an upcoming ESA/JAXA mission scheduled to fly in 2024, focusing on providing these observations.

Operating in a sun-synchronous orbit at 393 km altitude with a descending node at 14:00, EarthCARE's payload comprises two innovative active (Atmospheric UV High spectral resolution Lidar - ATLID and Cloud Profiling Doppler Radar - CPR provided by Japan) and two passive (Multi-Spectral Imager - MSI and Broad-Band Radiometer - BBR) instruments. Using these instruments, EarthCARE will provide global profiles of clouds, aerosols, and precipitation properties, along with co-located radiative TOA flux measurements. These atmospheric microphysical properties and associated radiative fluxes will be used to evaluate the representation of aerosols, clouds, and precipitation in weather forecast and climate models, contributing to the improvement of parameterization schemes. 

The ESA scientific retrieval processors fully exploit the synergy of these observations. EarthCARE will provide twenty-five science (Level 2) products. These products include nadir profiles of cloud, aerosol and precipitation properties along with constructed three-dimensional cloud-aerosol-precipitation domains and associated derived radiative properties, such as heating rates. The final L2 processor compares the forward modeled top-of-atmosphere broad-band radiances and fluxes based on the constructed 3D atmospheric scenes with those measured by the BBR in order to assess and improve the quantitative understanding of the role of clouds and aerosols in the Earth's radiation budget.

This presentation will provide an overview of the EarthCARE mission, its data processors and scientific products.