he Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite, launched in May 2024, is an ESA-JAXA mission, designed to improve our understanding of clouds, aerosols and their role in modifying radiant energy fluxes. To achieve its objectives, EarthCARE employs a suite of coincident active and passive sensors to provide an unprecedented view of the three-dimensional structure of clouds, precipitation and aerosols along with collocated observations of solar and terrestrial radiation.
EarthCARE, provides co-registered observations from a suite of four unique instruments located on a common platform: (1) ATmospheric LIDar (ATLID), (2) Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR), (3) Multi- Spectral Imager (MSI) and (4) BroadBand Radiometer (BBR). EarthCARE global observations include vertical profiles of natural and anthropogenic aerosols, the vertical contribution of ice and liquid water content, the cloud mesoscale distribution, precipitation microphysics, estimates of particle size, convective vertical air motions, as well as atmospheric radiative heating and cooling profiles. In addition to providing novel measurements for a better understanding of processes shaping Earth’s weather and climate, EarthCARE continues the heritage measurements of CloudSat, CALIPSO, Aeolus and CERES.
This session invites contributions on EarthCARE science themes related to the exploitation of mission data. These include instrument characterization, new active and passive retrieval techniques; cloud and precipitation microphysics, process studies related to the effects of clouds, aerosol, and aersol-cloud interactions on Earth’s radiant energy budget; as well as synthesis with other methodological approaches including ground-based, air- or ship-borne field campaigns and modelling studies. A special focus will be on the synergy with modeling activities exploiting the next generation of km-scale climate models, as in ECOMIP and within the global km-scale hackathon, and observational studies in combination with Organized Convection and EarthCARE Studies over
the Tropical Atlantic (ORCESTRA).