Speaker
Description
ALTIUS has been accepted as an Earth Watch mission with the primary objective of measuring concentration profiles of ozone in the stratosphere. But the mission has secondary scientific objectives which, however, are not driving the space segment developments. Recognizing that the instrumental concept of ALTIUS is offering opportunities for measuring at wavelengths relevant for other atmospheric species, and given the expected radiometric, spectroscopic, and pointing performances, a number of species have been identified as potential secondary targets of the mission. The development of the secondary products retrieval algorithms is starting, with the aim of having all the processing chains implemented in the payload data ground segment before the mission commissioning.
In this presentation, we will focus on the possibilities of the instrument itself, in particular the available spectral domain, and spectral resolution, and the radiometric performance. Based on these capabilities, a number of additional atmospheric species targets have been identified, with various levels of quality and confidence depending on the species themselves, and the observation modes. Algorithmic approaches to the retrieval of these species will be described, with a preliminary assessment of the feasibility.
The attention of the users and the validation communities will be drawn to the importance of expressing the needs well before the mission operation starts: the baseline acquisition scenarios of ALTIUS will not allow for retrieving all secondary species, and good identification of the needs in terms of seasons, locations, cadence, etc, will be important for maximizing the scientific return of the mission.
