News

• [2025-October-31] 
  EUMETSAT press releases showcase first atmospheric composition and properties measurements by IASI-NG, Sentinel-4, 3MI, METimage, and MWS.
   
• [2025-October-21]
  ESA and EUMETSAT showcase the first Sentinel-4 measurements of air pollutants.
  
  
• [2025-July-14]
  Following the successful launch of GOSAT-GW from Tanegashima on 29 June 2025, JAXA and NIES announce that the first light of the TANSO-3 instrument was acquired on 14 July 2025 [in Japanese - in English] 

Upcoming Events

Past News

• [2025-May-07]
  NDACC 2025 Symposium: Abstract submission deadline extended by one week to May 14, 2025 !
  
  
• [2025-May-01]
  ESA invites inretested parties to register and to participate in the Earth Explorer 11 (EE11) User Consultation Meeting (UCM), which will take place on 9 July 2025 in Prague, Czech Republic.  Two candidates, CAIRT and WIVERN, are currently undergoing Phase A studies. This EE11 UCM event will showcase each of the two mission candidates, to support the selection of one Earth Explorer 11 mission to proceed to full implementation.  To register for the event, please visit this link. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of this significant milestone for ESA Earth Observation !  Your expertise and input are highly valued, and your presence at the event is encouraged.
  
  
• [2025-Mar-20]
  The NDACC 2025 Symposium, celebrating 35 years of NDACC/NDSC operations and atmospheric research fostered by Network observations, will be held from 27-30 October 2025 at the Sheraton Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hotel in Virginia Beach, VA, USA. The symposium will provide a forum to exchange information on the latest scientific achievements using NDACC and related observations, and to present NDACC’s measurement strategy for the future. Abstract submission is now open till May 7.
  
  
• [2025-Jan-30]
  The 21st meeting of the CEOS Atmospheric Composition Virtual Constellation (AC-VC) and the 2025 meeting of the CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation / Atmospheric Composition Sub Group (WGCV-ACSG) will take place on 9-13 June 2025 in Takamatsu, Japan. The meeting will be kindly hosted by the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) of Japan. The agenda will be built around the AC-VC activity areas including greenhouse gases, air quality trace gases and aerosols, and ozone, with Cal/Val aspects being coordinated with WGCV-ACSG.
  
  The meeting will be held in parallel with the 21st meeting of the International Workshop on Greenhouse Gas Measurements from Space (IWGGMS-21), with a joint IWGGMS / AC-VC / WGCV-ACSG joint GHG session on best practices for emission uncertainties, L2 intercomparisons and Cal/Val.
  
  
• [2024-Nov-15]
  First announcement: The MIPAS, GLORIA, and CAIRT teams at KIT will host the 13th Atmospheric Limb Workshop on 2-6 June 2025 in the heart of Karlsruhe City, Germany.  Contributions will be welcome from all teams involved in the development, data processing, and scientific research of atmospheric limb missions:
  
       Past: (e.g., UARS-MLS, SAGE-II, HIRDLS, SMILES, SCIAMACHY, GOMOS, MIPAS)
       Ongoing: (e.g., SAGE-III/ISS, OSIRIS, OMPS-LP, ACE-FTS, Aura-MLS, MATS)
       Future and Proposed: (e.g., ALTIUS, SAGE-IV, ARGOS, ALI, CAIRT)
  
  Building on the success of the previous 12th Limb Workshop, this workshop will also include planetary limb missions (e.g., SOIR/VEx, NOMAD/TGO, OMEGA/MEx).
  
  
• [2024-Oct-15]
  The EVDC Orbit Visualization Tool, available via ESA’s atmospheric Validation Data Centre (EVDC), is a new and user-friendly platform designed to help researchers visualize satellite orbits and combine them with detailed Earth observation and in-situ data. This integration is crucial for validating atmospheric measurements and advancing our understanding of atmospheric composition changes. Read more on NDACC News page.
  
  
• [2024-Feb-15]
  The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV) is establishing CEOS-FRM Maturity Assessment framework to assess the maturity and compliance of a Fiducial Reference Measurement (FRM) in terms of a set of community-agreed criteria. The assessment process is based on a maturity matrix that provides a visual assessment of the state of any FRM against each of a set of given criteria, making visible where it is mature and where evolution and effort are still needed. The Roadmap towards an Assessment Framework for CEOS-Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRMs), available on the FRMs Assessment Framework page of the CEOS Cal/Val Portal, provides the overarching definition of what constitutes an FRM and introduces the new CEOS-FRM assessment framework.
  
  
• [2024-Jul-12]
  Note: Deadline extension till 11 October 2024 !  Announcement of Opportunity for Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5 Cal/Val: With a joint Announcement of Opportunity (AO) Call, ESA and EUMETSAT invite the science and user community to propose (e.g. nationally) funded activities that support the validation of the operational products of the Copernicus missions Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5.
  
  The objective is to trigger and coordinate activities aiming at establishing the initial post-launch quality of the products, supporting the consolidation of the processors, and verifying that the applicable quality requirements are met. The AO Call focuses on the early post-launch mission phase until the public release of the products. The AO Call was released on July 12, 2024, expecting the first launch of either MTG-S1 with an S4/UVN or MetOp-SG A1 with an S5/UVNS instrument on board, in the 2025 timeframe. Proposals can be submitted on-line to Eumetsat Call for Cal/Val activities for Sentinel-4 and -5  by 11 OCTOBER 2024.
  
  
• [2024-Jul-10]
  In response to growing requests for data management practices associated within atmospheric satellite Cal/Val activities, especially to support data formatting, data upload and data download from EVDC, NILU will host in Kjeller, Norway, the Atmosphere and Climate Data Management Workshop for Next Generation Earth Observation and Satellite Calibration and Validation Scientists (ATMONEXT).
  
  The workshop is necessary to tackle evolving challenges in managing atmospheric data generated/planned to be generated by scientists, as part of:
  (1) research infrastructure projects,
  (2) field-, ship-, drone- and aircraft campaigns, and
  (3) observing networks in support of Cal/Val activities.
  
  This workshop is expected to promote communication and share experiences of scientists in formatting data and following data standards to make their data useful for Cal/Val activities for current and future satellite missions such as e.g. EarthCARE, Sentinel-5P, ALTIUS and CO2M. The workshop goes beyond routine discussions and aims to explore practical solutions to data management using the implementation of the Generic Earth Observation Metadata Standard (GEOMS). Dates: 23-25 October 2024. If interested please apply on ATMONEXT-2024 Registration form by the 15th of August 2024.
  
  
• [2024-Jan-17]
  Save the date: In the week of 3 - 6 June 2024 a hybrid OMI-TROPOMI  Workshop will be held in Boulder, Colorado at the NCAR Foothills Laboratory and online. Contributions will be welcome for the following possible themes:
• Long-term Records
• AQ and Emissions
• Applications and Societal impacts
• GEO and Polar Orbit AQ constellations (including OMI, TROPOMI, GOME-2, OMPS, GEMS, TEMPO, etc.)
• Algorithm Improvements
• New Mission Ideas

• [2023-May]
  After three years of virtual events, the CEOS Atmospheric Composition Virtual Constellation (AC-VC) and the Atmospheric Composition Sub Group of the CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV ACSG) organize the CEOS AC-VC/ACSG Atmospheric Composition Joint Meeting 2023 in Brussels on October 24-27, 2023.
  
  This event will be the opportunity to exchange latest updates on atmospheric composition missions and coordinate international activities pertaining to satellite measurements of Air Quality & Aerosols, Greenhouse Gases and Ozone, and topics like Cal/Val requirements for the CEOS constellations and Science serving society.
  
  
• ESA organizes on October 10-11, 2023, the Earth Explorer 11 User Consultation Meeting in Bucharest, Romania. This user consultation is planned to support the selection of up to two missions for the ESA Earth Explorer 11 satellite. Three of the four candidate missions having passed the first selections address atmospheric composition and parameters:
  
  1) CAIRT, a tomographic imaging IR limb sounder targeting global profiling of ozone, temperature, water vapour, and key halogen and nitrogen compounds in the 5 to 115 km altitude range;
  2) NITROSAT, combining TIR and VIS spectrometers to monitor tropospheric ammonia (NH₃) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) at 1-km on-ground resolution; and 
  3) WIVERN, the WInd VElocity Radar Nephoscope for observing global winds, clouds and precipitation.

• NASA's Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument lifted off on its way to geostationary orbit at 12:30 a.m. (EDT) on Friday, April 7, 2023. TEMPO will be the first space-based instrument to measure air quality over North America hourly during the daytime and at spatial resolution of several square kilometers. TEMPO commissioning activities started in late May.

• Request for Information for NASA’s Terra, Aqua, and Aura Data Continuity Workshop  -  NASA announces the release of a Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Request for Information (RFI) via NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES) that seeks input from the science community that will be considered in the development and implementation of a Terra, Aqua, and Aura (T/A/A) data continuity workshop planned for Spring 2023.
  
  NASA requests input from the science community (comprising research, applied research, and applications) addressing data product continuity issues resulting from the eventual loss of the Terra, Aqua, and Aura satellites (more).  Release Date:  March 1, 2023.   Response Date:  April 4, 2023.

Past Events