Summary

The Joint Aeolus Tropical Atlantic Campaign has been organized and implemented by ESA and collaborating Institutes in summer/autumn 2021 in the Cape Verde region, with the main aim to provide reference measurements for the validation of the Aeolus products and to collect information for ESA’s upcoming missions such as EarthCARE. Next to an impressive airborne fleet from AVATAR-T and CADDIWA components situated on the island of Sal, intensive ground-based remote sensing and airborne measurements were performed on and above Mindelo in the framework of the ASKOS experiment. Specifically, a full ACTRIS remote sensing facility was deployed in the Sao Vicente island, including a multiwavelength-Raman-polarization lidar PollyXT, an AERONET sun photometer, a Scanning Doppler wind lidar, a microwave radiometer and a cloud radar. ESA’s novel reference lidar system eVe, a combined linear/circular polarization lidar with Raman capabilities, was deployed, which can mimic the observations of the space-borne lidar onboard Aeolus. Moreover, for 2 weeks in September, a lightweight airplane performed in-situ measurements in the aerosol layers around the island, in altitudes up to 3 km.

Here, we quickly introduce the measurements and present the first results. Focus is given to the intensive September period, where very different aerosol conditions were observed above and around Sao Vicente. As a next step, science application studies are anticipated, using the wealth of information provided by ASKOS and JATAC campaigns.