The Atmospheric Sentinel Missions for Air Quality Applications

Abstract:

In the frame of the European Copernicus programme, ESA is building satellite missions dedicated to atmospheric composition: Sentinel-4 will observe tropospheric composition over Europe with hourly revisit time; Sentinel-5 and the Sentinel-5 Precursor will provide atmospheric composition data with daily global coverage. Sentinel-4 will fly on the EUMETSAT platforms MTG-S and Sentinel-5 will be embarked on EUMETSAT’s post-EPS series of satellites, respectively, while Sentinel-5 Precursor will fly on a dedicated platform. These missions are designed to provide information on atmospheric NO₂, O₃, SO₂, HCHO, aerosols, CO and CH₄ (S5/5P only), as input to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Services which cover themes such as air quality, climate, ozone & UV, solar radiation, and emissions and surface fluxes. This presentation gives an overview of the atmospheric Sentinel missions and highlights their observational capabilities in the context of air quality applications.