December 18th, 2011

New satellite observations revealed a link between forests and acid rains
A LATMOS/IPSL (CNRS/UPMC/UVSQ) team, in collaboration with belgian scientists from IASB(Institut d'Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique) and from ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles), shown the existence of a major formic acid source above boreal and tropical forests. The formic acid is identified as the main responsible for the acid rains in these regions. These results, obtained thanks to infrared measurements from the French instrument IASI on board the meteorological satellite MetOp, are published on line in the scientific review Nature Geoscience on Decembre 18, 2011.
For more information, read the Press Release (in French).

October 6-7th, 2011

Fifth meeting of the ISSWG-2 at Perros-Guirec, France

September 2011

The cleaning of the atmosphere by tropical storms detected by IASI
The Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer IASI allows the measurement of the tropospheric content of some atmospheric trace gases (e.g. O3, CO) with an unprecedented spatiotemporal coverage. The O3 data produced by the Laboratoire d'Aérologie with the SOFRID (SOftware for a Fast Retrieval of IASI Data) enabled us to monitor the evolution of O3 above South Asia and to quantify the cleaning operated by tropical storms over the Bay of Bengal and central India. During the highly polluted period following the Monsoon, the lower-middle troposphere of the Indian sub-continent is characterized by high O3 concentrations.
However, the analysis of the tropospheric O3 quantities determined by IASI, have shown important and fast (24 hours) decreases of these concentrations over the Bay of Bengal and India during the fall of 2008 (see Figure below). The comparison with airborne O3 data from the MOZAIC programme measured around Hyderabad airport in central India have confirmed those abrupt O3 variations. The analysis of the meteorological situation and of the air masses origin have shown that the O3 drops were linked to the crossing over India of two violent tropical storms (Khai-Muk on November 15 and Nisha on November 27). Coming from the south of the Bay of Bengal the storms have replaced the polluted air by clean air from the marine boundary layer.

Tropospheric O3 integrated columns (surface-225 hPa) determined with the IASI-SOFRID software developed at the Laboratoire d'Aérologie in Toulouse for (a) 10-11-12 Nov. 2008, (b) 16-17-18 Nov. 2008, after the crossing of Khai-Muk storm, (c) 24-25-26 Nov. 2008, (d) 28-29-30 Nov. 2008, after the crossing of Nisha storm.

Read the complete publication on "Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics" web site

June 2011

A gush of volcanic gas seen by IASI
This image shows the huge plume of sulphur dioxide that spewed from Chile's Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Complex, which lies in the Andes about 600 km south of Santiago.

Huge plume of sulphur dioxide seen by IASI on June 6th, 2011 - © LATMOS

Read the complete news on ESA website

April 2011

IASI measures the record decrease of ozone at North Pole
The exceptional meteorological conditions lead to an unprecedented ozone decrease in Arctic this spring. By the end of March, observations (ground and satellite) as well as French models agree and indicate a decrease reaching about 40% since the beginning of winter. This phenomenon can be explained by a very cold and lasting winter in the stratosphere which lead to an intensifying of the ozone destruction processes due to the accumulation of chlorinated and bromated compounds.

Ozone distributions measured by IASI from March 1st to April 1st, 2011 - © LATMOS

Read the complete news on INSU website (in French)
Also see the data on LATMOS website (in French)

October 7-8th, 2010

Fourth meeting of the ISSWG-2 at ECMWF facility in Reading, UK

September 2010

Russian fires CO emission seen by IASI
This animation shows the CO total column measurements derived from the IASI/MetOp observations from July 22 to August 22, 2010. These data are averaged over 3 days on a 0.5°x0.5° grid and only daytime concentrations above 2.2 x 18 molecules/cm² are shown.

© Maya George (LATMOS)

May 2010

The Second IASI Conference acts are now available

April 19, 2010

Icelandish volcano ashes cloud under IASI eye
The Eyjafjöll ("the island mountain") volcano eruption in the south of Iceland is monitored by IASI instrument, developed by CNES and hosted by Eumetsat meteorological satellite Metop. For Icelandish volcano, Iasi measured, as shown in the animation below, the evolution of the ashes plumes. These data are then introduced in models (taking also into account for exemple the winds cinematics) which enable to generate the alert for the civil aviation.
IASI advantage: very precise data on the atmospheric profile (an unmatched sensitivity!), data two times a day, and thus a very performant adjustment of models.
Here after is an animation supplied by a team from ULB/LATMOS-CNRS which shows the realtime movement of the plume. The volcano emission of monday April 19 in the morning can be seen very clearly as well as its movement above Europe.
ULB and LATMOS work on IASI data since the beginning and track the most tenuous atmospheric chemical species thanks to IASI.

© L.Clarisse, D.Hurtmans, P.Coheur, JL.Lacour(ULB) / C.Clerbaux, M.George (LATMOS-CNRS)

December 1, 2009

Release of the latest (free) version of 4A/OP
LMD, CNES and Noveltis are pleased to announce the release of a new version of the 4A/OP Software and of its associated Web site.

Version 4AOP2009 v1.0 of 4A/OP has been recently released and is available to licensed users free of charge.
This latest version, 4AOP2009 v1.0, is now available and contains the following major revisions:

* Implementation of the limb viewing geometry:

** Refined geometry module
** Option for limb view simulation
** Height dependence of gravity acceleration

* Implementation of the user option to simulate scattering effects (coupling with DISORT and SOS codes). Option is active only in Earth view geometry and for aerosols.
* New atlases of pre-calculated optical thicknesses:

** that make the code more precise
** that include:

*** an updated line-mixing for CO2
*** the new GEISA 2008 spectroscopy
*** the pressure shift for H2O
*** updated gas mixing ratio profiles,
*** improved CFC> '> s formulation

* Minor bug fixes in a few routines of the model
* Updated and improved Graphical User Interface

4A/OP is a user-friendly software for various scientific applications, co-developed by LMD (Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique) and NOVELTIS with the support of CNES (the French Space Agency). 4A/OP is the reference radiative transfer model for IASI level 1 Cal/Val and level 1 operational processing.

October 22, 2009

Second IASI Exploitation Review (REVEX)
IASI REVEX objective is to present the in-flight model "health status", to present the status of the models stored on ground, to present the instrument performances status as well as, EUMETSAT operating METOP, to briefly present the operations context. Then the IASI data use aspects (meteorological centers, scientific use) will be discussed.

October 12, 2009

Third meeting of the ISSWG-2 at Eumetsat

June 19, 2009

First global ammonia distribution derived from infrared satellite observations
Ammonia is a significant atmospheric pollutant, accelerating the formation of particulate matter and damaging aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Infrared measurements of ammonia concentrations, obtained by the IASI/MetOp satellite, suggest that ammonia emissions in the Northern Hemisphere have been markedly underestimated. These results are in Nature Geoscience advance online publication, Published online: 21 June 2009, doi:10.1038/ngeo551.

Ammonia distributions in 2008 measured by IASI/MetOp above Europe, superposed to an image acquired by MODIS instrument [MODIS Image, L. Gonzalez et C. Deroo (LOA and Lille University)]. From yellow to red, the colors show the ammonia concentrations higher and higher. The white structures are clouds.
© ULB, CNES and INSU-CNRS

The article...

May 19-21, 2009

MetOP RAO workshop

May 6-8, 2009

14th International Workshop on Atmospheric Science from Space using Fourier Transform Spectrometry

Download the two CNES presentations:

May 5-8, 2009

Workshop on IASI data assimilation at ECMWF

April 9-10, 2009

Second meeting of the ISSWG-2 at Eumetsat

January 2009

Concordiasi to sound the Antarctic climate
In September and October 2009, 18 drifting balloons will be released to acquire measurements in the stratosphere. Twelve of them will release 600 parachuted dropsondes to establish vertical profiles of the troposphere.
Read the complete news

December 2008

The lifespan of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere can be greater than 100 years. They are at the origine of the destruction of the stratospheric ozonee. How has evolved this phenomenon for the last 30 years? The answers by Carole Deniel, responsible of atmospheric chemistry at CNES (in french).

June-July 2008

First meeting of the ISSWG-2

The first meeting of the ISSWG-2 took place in Paris from june 30th to july 2nd 2008.

April 2008

First manoeuvre of MetOp satellite

This manoeuvrer has been perfectly done by the operation team in Darmstadt. During this operation IASI was put in heater 2 mode from this first to the second burst with timetagged command to reduce the impact on the mission.

March 2008

Second ice decontamination

Taking advantage of the PLSOL METOP on March 20th, 2008, a second ice decontamination of IASI has been performed. The external calibration measurements show that this decontamination is well done. The Gain of the IASI instrument is even better than after the first decontamination (between December 2006 and March 2008).

18 July 2007

IASI level 1 data now formally operational

The IASI Product Review board has decided to declare the IASI level 1 data now operational. According to the performance level achieved and validated by the CNES during the cal/val phase, and the excellent feedback from the users, the board considered that now all the conditions are met to consider IASI level 1 production and dissemination operational.

12 June 2007

IASI data already used in Operational assimilation at ECMWF (European Center of Medium range Weather Forecast)
 

24 May 2007

Trial Dissemination of IASI Level 1c Products

The trial dissemination of the IASI level 1c products (atmospheric calibrated spectra) from Metop-A started on the 24 May 2007 at around 12:00 UTC. First EPS Global Data Service products are now available to the European national weather services via EUMETCast-Europe.
While the calibration and validation activities are still in progress, the analysis of the instrument performances and tuning of operational parameters under the leadership of the IASI TEC (Technical Expertise Centre in CNES Toulouse) have concluded that the instrument data can now be made available to the user community on a trial basis.