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The objective of BE07 is the reimplementation of the DUE GlobAEROSOL service through the usage of Grid technology, as an example of a class of services which require large and near real time data access and complex processing. The outputs generated by the system are global Earth coverage products that respond to emerging science and institutional environmental needs.

Case Study

BE07 Earth Observation Case Study
BE07 Earth Observation Factsheet

Remote sensing of aerosols from satellites is the most convenient tool for providing global information on aerosol spatial and temporal distributions. It is based on the concept that, when illuminated by the sun, aerosols absorb and backscatter a fraction of the radiation. This signal is detectable by the satellite instruments and gives information on aerosol presence. Actually, among the possibilities enabled by this approach, the interest of the different users can be summarized in two applications:

Aerosol optical properties and radiative impact on climate: for this application the expected benefit is an improved accuracy of the atmosphere modelling and climate prediction, in particular in the perspective of a global warming. Computer simulations of climate change show a great sensitivity to aerosols with some uncertainties on its amplitude. The aerosol concentration levels may be increased in the future due to human activities as well as climate change feed back. This will require global accurate aerosol monitoring over the next decade.

Particulate matter at the surface for air quality monitoring and health issues: particulate matter depends on aerosol size distribution and type. Links have been established between particulate matter levels and health problems in the respiratory system of the human body. Standard levels of air quality are being established for these levels. Global observation will help to extend the studies based on local measurements, to analyze the relationships between particulate matter and health risks, and to monitor and predict particulate matter levels for air quality forecasting.

Previously, the users usually monitored the above parameters from the surface by ground based networks. The need for a global product from space observations is driven by the necessity to fill the gap of networks (e.g. oceans and desert areas), a possible quality improvement by using space observation to inter-calibrate the ground networks, and eventually the economic benefits of scaling down the number of necessary network stations to be operated.

More details

GlobAEROSOL is a software system which is able to process the data gathered by a number of satellite sensors and, by using mathematical models designed for that end, generate global products where the aerosol information is obtained. At the present time, four different sensors are used: ATSR-2, AATSR, MERIS and SEVIRI. In order to analyze and dispatch all of them, several tools and processors are integrated into the system, being either developed by GMV or obtained from selected third parties.

Grid technology represents a unique opportunity for applications such as GlobAEROSOL, where a vast amount of data is to be analyzed, and the processing requirements are high. In order to benefit from the potential grid resources, however, certain changes in the software are required, so that the system is able to divide its tasks with a finer granularity, and they can be performed in parallel up to a great extent. If, as expected, the performance of the software can be improved significantly, then near real time products can be easily generated and a new range of opportunities for the end users will be at hand. While the actual generation of near real time products will not be implemented within the BEINGRID project, the experiment will allow to demonstrate the feasibility of such objective.

Objectives

The actual implementation of the software was intended to process the data gathered from the aforementioned sensors from 1995 to 2005. While several institutions, organizations and individuals are to receive these results for their own research and exploitation, some of them have already expressed their interest on obtaining near real time data of the same nature, in order to integrate the aerosol information received into their own application niches.

Satellite instruments such as SEVIRI may produce a vast amount of data, with up to 15 minutes measurement intervals, enabling the indirect measurement of various aerosol parameters. The GlobAEROSOL system is able to process the raw data generated by a number of instruments, and actually produce global maps with the refined information. The challenge, however, arises from the volume of data to be processed, which could eventually yield near real time results by means of the resources provided by grid technology.

Summarizing, the objectives and added values for this experiment are:

to provide complex aerosol products in near real time,
to independently handle large amounts of data required at inputs,
to enable access to distributed data sources,
to implement a better user access to standard and user specialised GlobAEROSOL products,
and to raise the interest of the target users with the availability of the new near real time service.

Portal and demo

A demonstration movie is available at the portal for the business experiment, which serves as the main user interface to the system. In particular, it can be reached through the following URL:

http://beingrid.terradue.com