THE ESA CLIMATE CHANGE INITIATIVE Satellite Data Records for Essential Climate Variables

The ESA’s Climate Change Initiative is reprocessing and reassessing over 40 years of multisensor satellite records to generate consistent, traceable, long-term datasets of “essential climate variables” for the climate modeling and research communities. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00254.1 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-93038 Published Version Originally published at: Hollmann, Rainer; Merchant, Chris J; Saunders, Roger; Downy, Catherine; Buchwitz, Michael; Cazenave, Anny; Chuvieco, Emilio; Defourny, Pierre; de Leeuw, Gerrit; Forsberg, Rene; Holzer-Popp, Thomas; Paul, Frank; Sandven, Stein; Sathyendranath, Shubha; van Roozendael, Michel; Wagner, Wolfgang (2013). The ESA Climate Change Initiative: Satellite data records for essential climate variables. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 94(10):1541-1552. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00254.1 The ESA’s Climate Change Initiative is reprocessing and reassessing over 40 years of multi-sensor satellite records to generate consistent, traceable, long-term datasets of “essential climate variables” for the climate modeling and research communities. THE ESA CLIMATE CHANGE INITIATIVE Satellite Data Records for Essential Climate Variables BY R. HOLLMANN, C. J. MERCHANT, R. SAUNDERS, C. DOWNY, M. BUCHWITZ, A. CAZENAVE, E. CHUVIECO, P. DEFOURNY, G. DE LEEUW, R. FORSBERG, T. HOLZER-POPP, F. PAUL, S. SANDVEN, S. SATHYENDRANATH, M. VAN ROOZENDAEL, AND W. WAGNER S ustained observations from satellites contribute vital knowledge to our understanding of Earth’s climate and how it is changing—one of the major challenges of the twenty-first century. Satellites observe on a global scale, which makes them useful for both the monitoring and modeling of climate and hence for improving the prediction and attribution of climate change. A major challenge in climate research is to move beyond single variable estimates of climate change to analyze and close the budgets of the energy, water, and carbon cycles characterizing our climate system (e.g., Trenberth et al. 2013). The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) has set out requirements for satellite data to meet the needs of climate science, designating key variables that are currently feasible for observation and important to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as “essential climate variables” (ECVs) (GCOS 2011). The specifications given by GCOS for ECV data products are designed to provide information to characterize the state of the global climate system and enable long-term climate monitoring. This often requires data at longer temporal scales (such as weekly or monthly), but AFFILIATIONS: HOLLMANN—Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Offenbach, Germany; MERCHANT*—University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom; SAUNDERS—Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom; DOWNY—European Space Agency, Harwell, United Kingdom; BUCHWITZ—University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany; CAZENAVE—Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, Toulouse, France; CHUVIECO—University of Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Spain; DEFOURNY— Earth and Life Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; DE LEEUW—Finnish Meteorological Institute, and Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; FORSBERG—National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark; HOLZERPOPP—German Aerospace Center (DLR), Wessling, Germany; PAUL—University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; SANDVEN—Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Bergen, Norway; SATHYENDRANATH—Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth, United Kingdom; VAN ROOZENDAEL—Aeronomy, Brussels, Belgium; WAGNER—Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria * CURRENT AFFILIATION: University of Reading, Reading, United