From September 29th to October 1st, research fellows of Hefei Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences led by Professor Jianguo Liu were invited to participate in the Sentinel-5 Precursor Validation Team Workshop (S5PVT), which was organized by the European Space Agency (ESA).

The workshop was held in the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) at Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) payloads’ designers, project and technical managers from ESA, as well as more than 70 scientists making research on application of payload data who were from Europe, the United States and other countries took part in the conference.

The Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) is a part of the European global environmental monitoring program (GMES). Its main load TROPOMI covers the ultraviolet, visible and short wave infrared spectrum, which is used to monitor the global atmospheric trace gas distribution and change. It is a continuation of the SCIAMACHY and OMI loads, and is expected to launch in 2016. The meeting mainly discussed the TROPOMI data validation, including 1 levels data, cloud products, UV-visible products and short wave infrared products, etc. Scientific researchers involved from all over the world introduced their foundation work in the relevant areas and TROPOMI data validation plan.

At the workshop, Professor Fuqi Si, deputy director of the Environmental Optics and Technology Center, director of the atmospheric trace gas differential absorption spectrometer (EMI) reported the developing progress of satellite payload EMI. Professor Cheng Liu from USTC, deputy director of the Key Lab. of Environmental Optics and Technology made the presentation for the satellite payload data validation, including the ground-based MAX-DOAS network validation, airborne UV hyperspectral observations, ground-based radar network and high-resolution FTIR validation.

The scientists of AIOFM got positive feedbacks from professional attendees for their work. A preliminary agreement of intention that AIOFM would join the S5P validation team has been achieved through mutual communication during the conference. It could be expected that AIOFM will obtain the TROPOMI data to verify the data quality using ground-based instruments in the first time. People from AIOFM and ESA exchanged opinions on number of topics such like boosting the international cooperation on the measurement data application for TROPOMI and EMI, as well as the feasibility of joint validation and verification work. They all hope carrying out the relevant research gradually under supervision of the competent authorities.