Atmospheric composition: IASI’s top ten
Abstract
The IASI mission is a versatile mission that fulfills the needs of three different communities:
numerical weather prediction, climate research and atmospheric composition monitoring. In order to
converge on the design of such an instrument all three communities had to make reasonable
accommodations 20 years ago, and it turns out that this mission is now recognized as essential for
weather forecasting, and for tracking pollutants/greenhouse gases from space. With the launch of
MetOp-B and -C and the continuity and new challenges offered by IASI-NG, an exceptional data
record will be available in the next few years.
The presentation (movie) illustrates some of the major findings related to atmospheric composition
changes as monitored by IASI during the last 10 years. It relies on accurate data available in near real
time along with an excellent horizontal coverage. We will show the global scale mapping of gases,
along with the detection of dust and ash particles, as well as the potential of the mission to catch
special events such as volcanic eruptions, large fires and pollution peaks.