Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) evolution: improved soil-vegetation-atmosphere modelling and data assimilation of atmospheric constituents

Expected Outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Accurate simulation of the biogenic fluxes of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and other atmospheric constituents to represent the corresponding processes in numerical models;
• Enhanced monitoring of environmental policies regarding eutrophication and acidification of soils and ecosystems as well as for regulatory reporting commitments;
• Improved management of soils and vegetation with view to reduce health impacts from pollen and VOCs.

Scope

The areas of R&I to address the above expected outcomes include:

• Advancing soil-vegetation-atmosphere surface/interface and evapo-transpiration parameterizations, numerical models and data assimilation techniques;
• Further development of surface (sub-)models that can account accurately and dynamically for the sources and sinks of key trace gases and aerosols and are compatible with operational implementation in CAMS global and regional systems;
• Improvement of methodologies to estimate deposition fluxes and associated uncertainties;
• Develop data assimilation approaches to deliver highly resolved deposition products, based on in-situ deposition networks and Earth Observation;
• Development of accurate pollen source models for additional species among the most allergenic ones in Europe (the current pollens in the CAMS portfolio are alder, birch, olive, grass, mugwort, and ragweed);
• Investigation of modelling of pollen at the global scale;
• Development of further use of satellite observations for improving calculation of dry deposition fluxes and emissions.

Eutrophication and acidifications of ecosystems remain among the most sensitive environmental issues which drive the revision of emission reduction strategies (UNECE Gothenburg Protocol, NEC Directive). Pollen and many atmospheric trace components such as VOCs represent major public health issues, affecting hundreds of millions of people globally and in Europe. Elaborated soil-vegetation-atmosphere surface/interface models and associated parameterization are needed to represent emissions, concentrations and deposition of such constituents. Enhanced numerical models, data assimilation and parameterization techniques are needed to characterize the fate of such constituents.

The proposal is expected to develop activities that will improve and expand the operational global and regional atmospheric composition analyses, forecasts, and reanalyses. In addition, the proposal should include some demonstrations of downstream applications that would benefit from these improvements. Synergies with Destination Earth are encouraged.

The main output of the project should be tools and methodologies that can be readily transferred to the CAMS operational global and regional systems. Coordination with CLMS is also encouraged.

The transfer of research results to operations should receive active attention during the project to strengthen the readiness for an operational deployment in the future. Appropriate involvement and/or interaction with the relevant Entrusted Entities of the Copernicus services, the conditions for making available, for re-using and exploiting the results (including IPR) by the said entities must be addressed during the project implementation. Particular attention should be paid to the potential use and complementarities with the products already developed in the other Copernicus services. Strengthening Copernicus services collaboration could be foreseen. Software should be open licensed.

Proposals are encouraged to build on or collaborate with related EU funded projects like SYLVA (biogenic aerosol) or CERTAINTY and CleanCloud on modelling.

In this topic, the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content should be addressed only if relevant in relation to the objectives of the research effort.

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Activities are expected to achieve TRL 5-6 by the end of the project. The reference TRL definition is the ISO 16290:2013 applicable to the space sector. Activities may start at any TRL.