Near-Real-Time MERIS Aerosol Products

The MERIS aerosols products delivery service is operational since July 1, 2005.

The products are available in near-real time over Austria and the Mediterranean, which means a time delay between data acquisition by the satellite to the delivery of the aerosol product of about one day. Data are also provided temporally aggregated for air quality reporting.

A Service Level Agreement has been signed with the Federal Environment Agency who is interested in this respect both in a timely delivery of data, as well as in the production of monthly, seasonal, and yearly average maps of aerosol data for reporting on the state of the atmosphere over Austria.

A Service Level Agreement has also been signed with Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) who is interested in the full archive data (2003-2004) on part of the continental United States.

The Service over the Mediterranean is currently tested by an other Service of PROMOTE: the regional Air quality forecast over the South East of France: AIRES.

The advantage of satellite data compared to the operational in-situ monitoring network is the wide spatial coverage of data. Especially in a country with a complex topography such as Austria, this provides valuable additional information for areas where no ground- based monitoring stations exist. Satellite data can also give valuable information about long-range transport of pollution. The monitoring service over the Mediterranean is also expected to provide an information about Saharan dusts.