The Sentinel-5p Mission Performance Centre provides an operational validation service relying on the VDAF Automated Validation Server (VDAF-AVS). This fully automated data analysis system collects correlative measurements from quality-controlled monitoring networks and compares them to Sentinel-5p data using community endorsed protocols. It outputs a suite of traceable quality indicators enabling users to judge the fitness-for-purpose of the Sentinel-5p data.
The illustration given hereafter shows the automated comparison of Sentinel-5p TROPOMI ROCINN_CAL cloud top height data with respect to correlative measurements aquired by Cloudnet lidar/radar measurements of the Cloudnet database. More TROPOMI CLOUD validation results are available at http://mpc-vdaf-server.tropomi.eu/cloud.
The VDAF Automated Validation Server in brief:
- hosted at BIRA-IASB and operated with s[&]t,
- provides routine validation for the ESA/Copernicus Sentinel-5p Mission Performance Centre,
- ingests correlative measurements from the ESA Atmospheric Validation Data Centre (EVDC) hosted at NILU, collected from ESA's Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) programme and from ground-based monitoring networks contributing to WMO's Global Atmosphere Watch,
- builds on heritage from the Multi-TASTE satellite validation system, the QA4ECV validation server (EC FP7 QA4ECV project) and the CAMS NDACC validation server (EC FP7 NORS project),
- is co-funded by ESA and the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) as a contribution to the Copernicus Space Component.