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OZONE SATELLITE DATA CENTRE
WEATHER RADAR ON LUOSTO FELL
ATMOSPHERIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL DATABASE
IONOSPHERIC DATABASE
SGO
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FMI's Arctic Research Centre (FMI-ARC) has been active in ground based
ozone measurements since late 1980's. The first two satellite ozone data
processing projects started in 2001 and 2002. Swedish ODIN satellite has onboard OSIRIS
instrument which ozone data the centre operationally process and delivers for archiving
in Sweden for further use by international scientists. The centre hosts the GOMOS processing
centre (FIN-CoPAC). The ozone data processed consists of 300-500 ozone profiles daily world wide.
The data is sent for archiving in other Envisat Processing and Archiving Centre, D-PAC.
The owner of this data is European Space Agency and users are scientists world wide.
Both these data are received in Kiruna, Sweden and delivered to Sodankyla for further
and final processing for scientific use. The Satellite Centre has started to receive directly meteorological MODIS instrument data in March 2003 from NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites. In average some 10 over passes daily are received and about 10 GB of products of each pass are routinely processed. The main user of this data are the operational meteorological forecasters at FMI in Helsinki but also Finnish Institute of Marine Research and The Finnish Environment Institute use the same data. This receiving system is originally built for receiving OMI ozone data from NASA's Aura satellite which launched on 15th July 2004. The measurement data flow started 13th October 2004. The processed data archived in Sodankyla and delivered to users world wide. Especially the ozone and UV daily situation is available in near real time now when the full chain of satellite data centre operations is in use. Direct receiving, fast processing, archiving and user services form finally the Sodankyla Satellite Data Centre which consists of these various projects. The same well trained staff operates all these tasks. The next step will be EUMETSAT's Ozone Satellite Application facility which has tasks the same way in ozone and UV data processing and archiving starting in 2006. The Satellite Data Centre of FMI-ARC started officially on 22nd of May 2002. The operational contract between ESA(The European Space Agency)and FIN-CoPAC was formulated for final form. It will be based on yearly contract having the continuation for the coming years according to the Envisat satellite and the GOMOS instrument life time. Nominally the operational phase is estimated to be at least 5 years. Because of Envisat's succeeded launch the estimated lifetime of the satellite has been raised to 9 years. The ESA launched successfully the environmental satellite, ENVISAT, from Kourou, French Guyana at 1:07 UTC in the night of 1st March 2002. The Ground Segment includes the tasks for operating the satellite and processing the data. There is 7 Processing and Archiving Centers (PACs) to process and archive the final data products. The FIN-CoPAC process the ozone data of the GOMOS instrument working in close cooperation with the D-PAC in Germany. The D-PAC process the data of three other instruments and archive all this data as well as the GOMOS data. Also the user services are in the D-PAC. The FIN-CoPAC was the first fully accepted centre within the whole Ground Segment of the Envisat satellite. The acceptance testing was successfully held on 31th of January in 2001. Over ten years the observatory has been very active in several ground based ozone and other atmospheric measurement projects. The satellite data processing in the ESA project is a new task not only for the observatory but for Finland too. The nationally funded data processing facility can be used for other similar projects. The FMI is involved in multinational small satellite project, Odin, led by Sweden. Part of the ozone data processing has been planned for the Sodankyla facility in the Arctic Research Centre of FMI. The Odin satellite was successfully launched on 20th February in 2001 from Svobodny, East-Siberia and operations are planned for at least two years. The FMI is involved in a NASA's earth observation satellite project. There is ozone monitoring instrument (OMI)onboard. The EOS-Aura satellite (with OMI instrument) was launched successfully on 15th of July 2004 from Vandenberg California. The Satellite Data Centre including the above mentioned several operational tasks is the processing centre for that purpose. Also a direct broadcast receiving station for the OMI data has been built. This gives now possibility to process the ozone data in near real time for UV radiation warnings. This project is planned at least for 6 years started in 2004. The same system is used for receiving the MODIS data of presently flying Terra and Aqua satellites. The FMI is the coordinator in an EUMETSAT project called O3SAF (ozone satellite application facility). The goal is to develop the operational Ground Segment for ozone and UV data processing for three satellites developed in cooperation with ESA and EUMETSAT. The first of these METOP/EPS satellites launched on 19th October 2006. There are plans to get the UV data processing and archiving to Sodankyla. This could be a major task lasting about 15 years. Further information: Head of the Operations Osmo Aulamo, email: osmo.aulamo@fmi.fi |
