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Introduction

EarthCARE is a joint European-Japanese mission addressing the need for a better understanding of the interactions between cloud, radiative and aerosol processes that play a role in climate regulation.
The EarthCARE mission aims to improve the representation and understanding of the Earth's radiative balance in climate and numerical weather forecast models by acquiring vertical profiles of clouds and aerosols, as well as the radiances at the top of the atmosphere.

Background

The Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) is a satellite mission aiming for global simultaneous observations of cloud-aerosol-radiation and cloud-aerosol-precipitation-convection processes. These processes are thought to be important since they have uncertainty in the global warming prediction. It was selected by ESA's Programme Board for Earth Observation for implementation as the sixth Earth Explorer Mission. ESA, JAXA, and NICT is carrying out the mission preparation aiming for satellite launch in 2013.

EarthCARE has four instruments: millimeter-wave cloud profiling radar (CPR), high spectral resolution lidar (ATLID), visible and infrared imager (MSI), and broad-band radiometer (BBR). The synergistic use of radar, lidar and imager observations will enable three-dimensional global retrievals of clouds and aerosols. Furthermore, a broad-band radiometer will make collocated measurements of short-wave and long-wave TOA radiances in order to study radiation effect of clouds,aerosols. The cloud profiling radar will furthermore have the capability to observe vertical motions in clouds by Doppler measurements, and the lidar will have high spectral resolution so that the molecular return can be separated from the cloud/aerosol signal.

The EarthCARE will contribute to succeeding observations after NASA's A-Train (CloudSat and CALIPSO), and will produce more valuable information on clouds, aerosols and radiation.

The first EarthCARE workshop was held at Tokyo in 2002 and the previous workshop washeld at ESTEC Noordwijk in May 2007.

1st Circular

The EarthCARE Workshop 2009
Date: June 10 ‒ 12, 2009
Venue: Kyoto Royal Hotel