About

The ESA-L2A+ project aims to develop a refined Aeolus L2A aerosol product, and test its applications to enhance aerosol research. In a nutshell, the L2A+ project aims to:

1. Develop a refined Aeolus aerosol optical product (L2A+), based on AEL-FM/AEL-PRO algorithms, geostationary AOD products, CAMS, and new AOD retrievals from the Aeolus itself. The product will be thoroughly compared with L2A and validated against quality-assured measurements from the ESA-ASKOS/JATAC experiment in Cape Verde.
2. Examine the impact of L2A and L2A+ on aerosol assimilation and dust transport models, to assess the capacity to improve dust emission fluxes over the Sahara desert and transport simulations of the full particle size range.
3. Assess the impact of Aeolus on NWP, utilizing L2A+ aerosol assimilation.
4. Highlight the benefit of the Aeolus joint aerosol and wind assimilation for simulating dust deposition fields, and compare with CAMS reanalysis to assess the impact of L2A+ for dust deposition across the N. Atlantic Ocean domain.
5. Compare the monthly averaged L2A+ product with the CALIPSO L3 product, to assess the climatological value of L2A+ for aerosol databases (i.e., ESA-LIVAS).

APPROACH

A synergy of sophisticated algorithms, state-of-the-art observations, and numerical simulations will be considered in the framework of the LA+ project. Regional atmospheric-dust modeling.

Regions of Interest (RoIs): Broader North Atlantic Ocean and Western parts of the Saharan Desert.

Assessment versus reference datasets: ESA-ASKOS/JATAC campaign (09/2021, summer 2022).

Programme of work

The L2A+ project consists of the following work packages:

	Work Package	Start date	End date
WP1000	Management, Reporting, and Promotion	2022-11	2024-10
WP2000	ASKOS ground-based datasets in support of L2A+	2022-11	2024-04
WP3000	Development of the L2A+ aerosol product	2023-02	2024-07
WP4000	Assimilation of L2A/L2A+ and application of WRF-L	2023-05	2024-10
WP5000	Impact Studies	2023-11	2024-10
WP6000	Recommendations	2024-06	2024-10