Copernicus for Atmosphere and Climate Change, including CO2 -

Project results are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes:

• Enhanced quality and enhanced efficiency of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring and Copernicus Climate Change services to respond to evolving policy and/or user requirements and to technological developments
• Continuation of the set-up of the new Copernicus service element for the monitoring of anthropogenic CO2 emissions
• Development of efficient and reliable new product chains, calling for innovation in data fusion, data processing and data visualisation and implementing Big Data & analytics modern solutions to handle more high-volume satellite data sets and product sets. The baseline is to improve the service in a modern and user-friendly way while preserving continuity of what has been achieved.
• Development of new algorithms and processing chains preparing for the use of new types of space observation data (being from new Sentinels, other contributing missions or ESA Earth Explorer missions) in order to allow the development of new products or the improvement of existing ones.
• Development of innovative and robust methodologies for characterising the likelihood of occurrence extremely hazardous events as well as of compound and/or sequences of and/or cascading hazardous events in the present and in future climate
• Development of an appropriate framework for attributing extreme compound, sequences and/or cascading events to climate variability and change.

The areas of R&I are:

• Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service evolution: the objective is to develop new and advanced modelling and data assimilation in CAMS global and regional systems in order to keep modelling and data assimilation aspects at the international state-of-the-art and benefit fully from ground-based and satellite observations, in particular from active remote-sensing networks with profiling capabilities (e.g. lidars, ceilometers, radars). In addition, new methods to advance substantially in the modelling of secondary aerosols and their interlinks with gas phase primary aerosols, as well as with gas and aqueous. With an integrated modelling approach, the integration of new observational data becomes a driver for further enhancement and improved realism of the already existing production chains, assimilation systems and coupled models. The development of advanced processing and modelling techniques, as well as the exploitation of new sources of data, will be targeted to create new products or significantly improve the quality and performances of existing elements-components for the benefit of users. The projects should take into account the existing service and clearly define to what extent the service will be improved with new elements or products, including the use of enhanced models, algorithms, tools and techniques to generate new products. The main output of the project should be tools and methodologies that can be readily transferred for improving aerosol representation in CAMS operational global and regional systems. The proposal should develop activities that will improve the quality of the aerosol variables in the CAMS global and regional analyses, forecasts and reanalyses, as well as of the CAMS solar radiation products.
• Copernicus Climate Change Service evolution: the objective is to develop innovative methodologies to characterise compound and cascading extreme weather events, including determining the potential frequency, intensity and impacts of these events in a changing climate. The proposal should underpin the creation of tools to monitor these events, attribute them to climate variability and change and, whenever possible, project changes in their likelihood. Proposals are expected to provide tangible results (new or improved products or service elements) for the Copernicus service. The research should be performed using existing Copernicus datasets for identifying natural hazard events at continental (Europe) and global scales, and existing methods, models (including local), tools and observations available at the different Copernicus Services. Examples of high-impact weather-driven natural hazards include, but are not limited to, floods, droughts, wildfires, desert dust storms, storm surges, heatwaves. The proposed research and development should be modular and scalable and the transfer of research results to operations should receive active attention during the project to strengthen the readiness for an operational deployment in the future. Further details are highlighted in the Guidance document.
• Research activities to develop new and innovative methods to improve the numerical requirements (accuracy, mass-conservation) for the numerical schemes in the CO2MVS system for of atmospheric CO2 and other relevant tracers in the CAMS/CO2MVS capacity to accurately estimate CO2 emissions and to improve the numerical schemes used in the CO2MVS capacity systems based on accurate metrics. The main objective is to perform R&D activities identified as priorities for the Copernicus CO2MVS capacity as identified by the European Commission’s CO2 monitoring Task Force. The activities should support the further development of the foreseen European operational monitoring support capacity for anthropogenic CO2 emissions. These activities should complement or follow-up on the activities within the H2020-funded CO2 Human Emissions (CHE) project and the Prototype system for a Copernicus CO2 service (CoCO2) project. The activities, as described in the Guidance document, should address a series of scientific and critical system design issues, which were defined following outcomes of the CHE project and based on recommendations from the CO2 monitoring Task Force. More generally, this action should support the development of an integrated support capacity, enabling European experts to collectively share their knowledge and join forces on the multiple fronts required to develop such a system with operational capabilities. The activities should fulfil the technological and scientific requirements for the development of this European operational capacity, to further improve the prototype system to better meet user requirements and to exploit synergies with other Copernicus services.

A proposal should address only one area, which must be clearly identified.

Proposals are expected to provide tangible results (new or improved products or service elements) for the Copernicus service within the period 2021-2027. The proposed research and development should be modular and scalable and should support the automatization of different processes orchestration. The activities of the project should raise synergies towards Earth Observation Envelope Programme (ESA EOEP) and also contribute to the objectives set by the Group on Earth Observation and outcomes and relevant results of the project should be promoted also at international level through the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

The projects should provide a proof-of-concept (e.g. system element targeting TRL 5-6) at least demonstrating the feasibility of the integration in the existing core service.

Additionally, the transfer of research results to operations should receive active attention during the project to strengthen the readiness for an operational deployment in the future. Appropriate interaction with the relevant Entrusted Entity of the Copernicus services, the conditions for making available, for re-using and exploiting the results (including IPR) by the said entities must be addressed during the project implementation. Software should be open licensed.

Applicants are advised to consult information on the Copernicus programme in general at https://www.copernicus.eu/en and further details on the topic in the Guidance document.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.

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