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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SCARBO (Space CARBon Observatory)

Teaser

Summary

The EU policy guidelines for anthropogenic greenhouse gases monitoring from space call for frequent observations, high accuracy and spatial resolution. These requirements are currently unmet.
The Horizon 2020 project SCARBO (Space CARBon Observatory) aims at solving the key challenge of anthropogenic greenhouse gases by proposing proposes a solution leveraging on small satellites and a novel miniaturised static spectrometer, coupled with aerosol sensors and calibrated with high-end reference CO2 missions.

One of SCARBOâ€™s primary goals will be to assess the suitability of the NanoCarb concept in the context of an anthropogenic GHG monitoring system though 4 objectives :
- Perform the proof of concept and performances assessment of the NanoCarb sensor
- Demonstrate the interest of combined measurement of GHG and aerosols for performance enhancement
- Perform a preliminary operational GHG monitoring mission definition
- Ensure the successful exploitation of the SCARBO mission and the commercialisation of its downstream services

The SCARBO study will cover the concept optimisation to increase accuracy, the assessment of the need for reference CO2 sensors to provide fine calibration capability, and the use of complementary aerosol sensors to reduce the biases over the concentration estimates.

Work performed

\"SCARBO kicked-off its activities in December 2017 and will run until January 2021. The project is organized around 21 Work Packages within 7 main activities : End Users, Sensors concepts, System concept, Experimental Validation campaign, Performance assessment, Exploitation & Use Cases and Coordination & Communication.
The \"\"End Users\"\" activities (WPs 2 to 4) were completed during the first period. All other WPs have are on-going except for WPs 13, 14 & 20 which will start during or after the Experimental Validation Campaign in May 2020.

In terms of coordination (WP1), besides expected management tasks, 2 meetings with an User Advisory Board (March & September 2018) were held and the General Assembly in March 2019. SCARBO coordinator has also liaised with two other H2020 projects CHE and VERIFY (CHE coordinator & VERIFY partners are members of the SCARBO UAB; participation to the Joint CHE-VERIFIY G.A. in March 2019).
Communication channels have been set up right from the start of the project to disseminate knowledge on the scientific and technical achievements of SCARBO (WP21), with a project public Website and a Twitter channel. The project is also promoted by scientific and industrial partners via conferences, workshops and congresses. SCARBO partners have also published technical papers to present preliminary results of the project.

\"\"End Users\"\" activities consisted in the gathering of User Needs (WP3) from stakeholders interested in monitoring CO2 & CH4 fluxes (industry, city governments, forestry associations, regulators and the scientific community). The most promising users includes: Cities, with a growing importance of local issues; National ®ional governments, in support of international agreements; Oil & gas sector for monitoring CO2 and CH4 emission data; Scientific community for additional data to establish accurate budgets of GHG fluxes.
WP4 (Mission requirements) provided of a set of Level 2 mission requirements for CO2 and CH4 based on the output of WP3, including Random Error better than 1 ppm for XCO2, Relative Systematic Error better than 0.5 ppm for XCO2, Horizontal Resolution grid size better than 6 km2, Swath better than 240 km and Temporal Coverage (mid-latitudes) at least sub-weekly, targeting Sub-Daily.

Sensor concepts activities included the design of the NanoCarb GHG instrument (WP5) and of the aerosol support instrument (WP7).
Trade-off studies were carried out to determine how NanoCarb can reach the specifications, the choice of the spectral bands (O2, CO2, CH4, aerosols) and of the optical path difference, the instrument optical design and the performance estimation. These activities are on-going.
The aerosol instrumentâ€™s high level requirements were derived from WP4 and analyses were performed to reach the polarimetric and radiometric accuracy levels. An instrument concept was proposed, based on SPEXone, developed for the NASA PACE mission.
The System concept activities (WP8 & WP6) performed so far are the analysis of the requirements, the identification of mission drivers, and a mission analysis defining the characteristics of the SCARBO constellation that will monitor the target zones while fulfilling the technical requirements.

The Demonstration campaign is planned in the 2nd period of the project (May 2020). However some WPs have already started in order to prepare for this major milestone: WP9 (NanoCarb prototype development) , WP10 (Aerosol instrument procurement), WP11 (MAMAP instrument procurement) and WP12 (Demonstration campaign preparation).

The Performance assessment activities include a group of work packages (WP15 to WP18 ) whose overall goal is to assess SCARBO L2 performance and CO2 and CH4 flux characterization at different spatial scales â€“ regional and local. WP15 generates required data for the following WPs (geophysical parameters, simulated L1 and L2 data, definition of scenarios and use cases). This data is then used by WP16 for L1â†’L2 performance assessment, WP\"

Final results

Temporal resolution increase and reduction of systematic errors due to aerosols are two major improvements brought by SCARBO to the GHG missions and benefits from the miniaturization effort of the sensors. Demonstrating the feasibility of a GHG monitoring satellite constellation based on a synergetic use of miniature GHG and aerosol sensors and high-end institutional missions will allow Europe to remain at the forefront of the initiatives against global warming: Europe will be able to monitor anthropogenic GHG with an unprecedented temporal resolution, for the cost of a traditional full-fledged satellite mission.
The multi- application spectrometer product will also address a wide range of atmospheric components (CO2, CH4, NOx, aerosols) and even fundamental planetology missions.
In more details, designing and validating a miniaturized static Fourier transform spectrometer based on an innovative spectrum sampling technique, and designing key optical components such as the mission-specific interferometric blade will improve the European command of compact optical instruments.
SCARBO will transfer a novel technological concept originating in a public research laboratory into an industrial system, directly applying research results to economically sustainable projects. In particular, the resulting GHG maps will leverage not only the European space industry, but also a wealth of carbon application and services.