Copernicus CO2 Monitoring Mission (CO2M) science support

The CO2 Monitoring (CO2M) mission is the space component of the European integrated monitoring and verification support capacity (MVS) dedicated to the monitoring of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. This CO2-MVS is part of the next Copernicus program component by the European Commission and will be implemented jointly by ESA, EUMETSAT and ECMWF. This European anthropogenic CO₂ MVS has the following objectives:

1. The operational provision of atmospheric CO₂ measurements obtained from dedicated space-borne sensors, complemented by in-situ networks and ancillary observations.
2. The operational provision of top-down anthropogenic CO₂ emission maps and anthropogenic emission maps, with high spatial and temporal resolution, and short time updates.
3. The operation of a data-assimilation system, which will integrate atmospheric measurements with bottom-up information into consistent and accurate estimates of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions and their trends.
4. The provision of a decision support tool.

EUMETSAT is developing a significant part of the CO2M ground segment to undertake the day-to-day operations of CO2M and the processing of CO2M products, as part of the Copernicus Third Party Program. ESA is developing the space-segment and parts of the overall CO2M ground segment. The CO2M Payload Data Processing Segment (PDPS) and its operational products provided by EUMETSAT and its partners, will contribute to the first objective of the integrated observation system.

CO2M products

Geophysical products (L2)

• Dry-air column weighted total column CO₂: XCO2
• Dry-air column weighted total column CH₄: XCH4
• NO₂ tropospheric column
• Aerosol and cloud information
• Solar Induced Fluorescence (SIF) of vegetation

Optical measurement products (L1)

• Top of the atmosphere (TOA) spectral radiance and reflectance at high spectral resolution suitable for the XCO2, XCH4, NO₂ and SIF retrievals.
• Multi-viewing and polarised radiance information for aerosol and cloud retrievals.
• Cloud imager radiance information for could detection.

CO2M studies

EUMETSAT's Remote Sensing and Products (RSP) division has conducted or is currently conducting the following scientific support studies related to CO2M ground segment implementation.