Microcarb

Goals

The scientific objectives of the Microcarb mission are to provide the scientific community with the information (vertical CO2 concentration columns) to monitor the surface fluxes of CO2 between land, atmosphere, oceans and vegetation.  These objectives are similar to those of the NASA-JPL OCO-2 mission.  A particularity of Microcarb is to achieve this objective with a small instrument that can be embarked on a Myriad-type microsatellite platform.   If the Microcarb experiment proves to be successful, this could lead to a long-term operational system for continuous monitoring of carbon flows. A constellation would make it possible to achieve higher spatial and temporal resolution for determining the fluxes, which remains a desirable objective.

Instruments

The mission will be based on passive sounding (the instrument measures solar luminance after reflection from the Earth’s surface) with a compact, low-cost design. The instrument is a spectrometer operating in 4 spectral bands (0.76 and 1.27 μm for O2 measurement, 1.6 and 2 μm for CO2 measurement); measurements will be acquired only on the illuminated surface of the orbit, both on the oceans and on land. On land, measurements will be taken either at nadir or on either side of the satellite track.  Acquisitions in a fixed direction will also be possible.  On the oceans, measurements will be made in the glitter direction (because of the darkness of the water in the wavelength range being explored).
This is a sampling mission. The data will feed a 4-dimensional circulation model (3 spatial and 1 temporal), with a limited spatial resolution (around 3°, which can evolve up to 1°).  Systematic coverage of all points on the earth (inducing a sufficient swath and revisit period) is not required.  The size of each ground spot will be of the order of 40 km².
The Microcarb mission focuses on the concentration of natural CO2 fluxes. The main uncertainties on these fluxes concern vegetated land and extend from the tropical region to high latitudes. There are no significant fluxes in desert or snow/ice areas. Tropical areas are very poorly sampled by the current surface network and have the largest uncertainties, but there are also many scientific questions about mid- and high latitude land areas. 

Project Stakeholder

AERIS is contractually involved in the development of the ground segment, along with CNES and Eumetsat.

CNES is developing the data processing software (levels 1 and 2) and Eumetsat is developing the operational processing chain that will integrate the CNES software. AERIS will receive the data from Eumetsat and will be in charge of distributing them and making them available to users.